


Scar

by Miss_Peg



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 07:26:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1770682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Peg/pseuds/Miss_Peg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A case takes the team to a small town, where Lisbon's past comes back to haunt her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Mentalist Big Bang.  
> Word Count: 25416  
> Rating: M  
> Summary: A case takes the team to a small town, where Lisbon's past comes back to haunt her.  
> Disclaimer: I definitely couldn't have written a season six like that, so nope, TM isn't mine.  
> Notes: It feels so long ago that I came up with this idea, though I've been working on it on/off since then. I'm a little sad I didn't get to put in another major edit, but I've just started a new job, so that kind of took priority this week.
> 
> WARNING: I don't do specific warnings, but if you get triggery things and want to check, let me know and I'll tell you the specifics.

**2014**

‘Two girls have been killed just north of Wichita Falls, we’re on the first flight over there,’ Abbot said as he walked into the bullpen. ‘Go home, pack a few things, I’ll meet you at the airport in one hour.’

Lisbon, who had been making progress with a cold case, let out a sigh. The last thing she needed when she had a lead was a trip to the other side of the state. But new cases had always taken priority. By the time Lisbon put the case file in her desk drawer and gathered her things, the bullpen was nearing empty. It had taken her a while to get used to the speed things were done at the FBI and had yet to follow suit.

On her way home to pack she rang Jane, who answered after the first ring.

‘Hi Teresa,’ Jane answered in the tone Lisbon had come to love as his happy tone.

‘Hi there,’ she said, a stupidly large grin on her face. The man one car over smiled at her as she slowed for a red light. His expression suggested more than a passing interest in her. ‘Sorry Jane, just give me a moment.’

She reached into her glove compartment and pulled out a gun, checking the magazine in full view of the other driver. His smile faded, the red light changed to green and he sped off down the street. Lisbon replaced the gun and, after a few beeps from the cars behind her, set off once more.

‘What happened?’ Jane asked. ‘Were you checking your gun?’

Lisbon rolled her eyes, though her smile never faltered. ‘Some jerk was ogling me from his car.’

‘And you were going to shoot him?’

‘No, I just wanted him to know I wasn’t a push over.’

‘Attagirl. Was there a reason for your call or did you just want to hear my voice?’

Lisbon let out a small laugh and turned right into a side road. ‘I’m going to Wichita Falls, or there abouts.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘North Texas, apparently.’

‘Case?’

‘Two bodies.’

‘Let me know how you get on.’ Lisbon raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent. ‘What?’

‘What, what?’

‘What were you going to stay but didn’t?’ he asked.

‘You’re on vacation Jane.’ Lisbon paused to let her words sink in. ‘Your first not-running-from-the-law-vacation in over a decade; can’t you just enjoy yourself like normal people?’

‘Since when was I normal people?’

‘I’m not keeping you in the loop about this case.’

‘I never asked you to.’

‘“Let me know how you get on”,’ Lisbon mocked.

‘I was thinking about the long nights away from home, how you’ll cope without me.’

‘I think we both know you’ll have called me before I called you, even if I was at home.’

‘What’s a man to do out here in Hawaii on his own?’ said Jane. ‘There’s only so many hula girls I can take before I need some attention.’

‘Most men have a beer and order porn.’

‘Since when was I most men?’

‘I’m nearly home,’ said Lisbon. ‘I’d better go, I haven’t got long. Just wanted to let you know where I’d be in case you called.’

The phone stayed silent and for a moment Lisbon thought Jane had hung up, until he let out a soft sigh. ‘I love you.’

‘Me too,’ she said, before ending the call.

x

They touched down in Wichita Falls shortly before one, where they rented a couple of cars, drove north of the city and checked into a motel on the edge of the town where the murders took place. After freshening up they made their way to the sheriff’s office.

‘Hello?’ Lisbon called out, her hands on her hips. ‘Is anybody there?’

‘They’d better hurry up,’ said Fischer, rubbing her stomach. ‘I want some lunch.’

Cho stepped behind the counter and glanced around the office. ‘No sign of anyone back there.’

Fischer shrugged her shoulders and sat down in the small waiting area. ‘I guess we wait.’

Cho perched on the edge of one of the chairs beside Fischer whilst Lisbon leant against the wall. Eventually, a car pulled up outside. The door opened and two men in uniform entered the waiting area.

‘What can I do for you folks?’ the man with the sheriff’s badge asked.

‘I’m Agent Kimball Cho,’ he said, standing up, holding out a hand and show his own badge in return. ‘This is Agents Lisbon and Fischer we’re with the FBI. We’re here about the two bodies.’

‘Make that three, girl gone missing,’ he grunted, clearing his throat loudly. ‘She disappeared last night, hadn’t been to school after supposedly staying at her friend’s house. When her parents called, turned out they’d been having one of those girly squabbles and hadn’t seen each other in weeks.’

‘What about the body?’ asked Cho, staring at the man. 

‘Oh yeah, the burn out,’ said the sheriff, clearing his throat loudly. ‘Dog walker found it a couple hours ago down by the lake, we don’t know if it’s Ellie Baker or not.’

‘We’d like to see the crime scene,’ said Fischer, leading the way to the door of the sheriff’s office. The man frowned, stood waiting in the corridor for a moment, before following the team out into the street.

‘The coroner’s on his way, you can’t touch nothing,’ he said.

'We're not going to disturb the scene, Sheriff,’ said Lisbon, trailing off.

‘Andrews, you can call me Sheriff Andrews.’ The sheriff stepped up in front of Lisbon until he towered over her. ‘You’re mighty small for a cop.’

She stared up into his eyes with a crease of the brow. ‘Makes it easier to shoot people in the foot.’

‘Small but mighty, Sheriff Andrews,’ said Fischer, patting him on the shoulder and heading towards the rental.

The crime scene was unexpected to say the least, when Lisbon opened her car door, the first thing to hit her was the stench. She felt what little breakfast she’d managed to eat retreat and for a brief moment expected that she would vomit.

'Are the bodies connected?' asked Cho, folding back the cover of his notebook. 'Did you get a statement from the dog walker?'

The sheriff stood up taller, a loud clearing of the throat enough to knock anyone sick before he spat a glob of saliva on the sandy ground. Lisbon closed her eyes and turned away.

'All three bodies were burned in the same way, looks like some tribal voodoo, if you ask me.'

‘That is quite a smell,’ Lisbon muttered. ‘I don’t think it’s just bodies that were burned here.’

‘I feel sick,’ said Fischer from the back of the group, before rushing off into a small bushy area where she vomited loudly.

'I’ll check on her, make sure she’s okay,’ said Cho, retrieving a handkerchief from his pocket which he handed to Lisbon before following Fischer.

The sheriff led the way into a pile of burned scrub surrounding a tree, where they found a body, burned to a crisp. Lisbon walked around the burned area looking for any sign of what could have happened. The remains were gathered at the base of the tree, skin and muscles fused to bone which maintained some semblance of shape.

‘Were the others found the same way?’ asked Lisbon, pulling the handkerchief from her face only long enough to speak.

‘Round and about,’ the sheriff muttered through a rag he held to his face. ‘The second was against a tree on the other side of the lake, almost burned down a cabin.’

‘You see that?’ Lisbon asked, nodding towards a golden pendant resting on the remains of the body.

‘Pentagram,’ Cho replied, re-joining them. ‘You think she was burned at the stake?’

‘Sure looks that way,’ said Lisbon. ‘Sheriff, did either of the other two crime scenes look this way?’

‘Sure, all three of ‘em had that gold thingy round their necks. My deputy thought it must be some sort of cult symbol. I said it looked like tribal voodoo.’

‘It’s Wiccan,’ said Cho, putting on a pair of gloves and stepping closer to the body, lifting the pendant carefully in his hands. ‘It’s got something engraved into it; Wichita Coven forever.’

‘Not so forever anymore,’ said Lisbon. ‘How’s Fischer?’

‘She’s okay,’ Cho replied. ‘Stayed in the car.’

‘We need to isolate the body from the undergrowth,’ said Lisbon. ‘If this is Wiccan they might have burned some herbs or incense, it certainly smells that way.’

‘But the coroner,’ said the sheriff.

‘We’ll wait for the coroner,’ said Cho. ‘If all three scenes were the same or similar, it’s looking like we might have a serial killer on our hands.’

**1988**

The bookstore was quiet when they went in, so much so that Teresa and her friends went straight for a section on the occult and there they stayed for the rest of the afternoon. The bookstore owner barely fluttered an eyelash in their direction.

‘This one’s a book about witchcraft in the middle ages,’ said Samantha, her long hair flowing down her back. ‘Oh look, another book about Salem.’

‘Here’s one about some cheesy show about witchcraft,’ Lin said, holding up a book with three women dressed in black cloaks and hats. ‘It says that they danced around their cauldron with broomsticks, how very normal.’

‘Gotcha,’ said Teresa, holding out a couple of books. ‘Wicca for beginners and How to cast a spell in ten easy steps.’

‘This one has got to have a love spell,’ said Lin, taking the ‘How to’ book and flicking through the pages. Teresa began searching Wicca for beginners, flicking through page after page about the history of Witchcraft, the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials and the effects of the media on the image of the modern witch.

‘I knew we’d find one somewhere,’ said Samantha, taking the ‘How to’ book from Lin and reading through the spell she’d found. ‘I am totally going to cast this on Michael Geraghty. He’s so dreamy.’

‘Nu-uh, Jimmy Forrester is so much hotter.’

‘Good job we can all cast our own spell then, isn’t it?’ said Samantha, raising her eyebrows and twisting her hips. ‘Who are you casting yours on, Tessie?’

‘What?’ she asked, still reading a page about witchcraft in modern literature. ‘Oh, nobody.’

‘Come on Tess, you promised you’d do this with us,’ said Lin, rolling her eyes. ‘How about Greg?’

‘Yes, Greg!’ said Samantha, a smirk on her face. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you last night.’

‘He was not looking me in any way,’ she replied, closing the book and replacing it on the shelf. ‘But I guess I could do it on him.’

‘Perfect,’ said Lin. ‘Now where do we find incense and candles?’

‘There’s a weird shop that sells candles and faery models a couple blocks from Greasies,’ said Samantha. ‘They probably sell incense too.’

‘As long as I don’t have to drink anything containing weird ingredients,’ said Teresa, looking sceptical.

If she was honest, she didn’t really know why she was bothering. Her dad would have probably murdered her for messing with Wicca, it went against her religion in almost every way possible. She was supposed to be on the side of the witch hunters, not the witches themselves. But she also knew how hard it was to keep hold of friends. After her mom died and she went to high school, she lost so many friends that she didn’t much care to lose anymore. So she went along with it, just for the fun of being part of something. That didn’t mean she believed in anything they were about to do.

The weird store, Meda’s, had everything that they needed and what the woman behind the counter considered ‘the best book of spells’, much to Teresa’s annoyance. She half hoped that maybe they wouldn’t be able to find everything they needed, then she would have a reason to get out of doing such a ridiculous thing. Her friends didn’t find it quite so ridiculous though, which troubled her, whether magic was real or not, she didn’t want to mess with it, just in case.

So they went straight to Lin’s house, both of her parents were out of town on business and now that she was sixteen, her parents accepted that she was old enough to look after herself and her thirteen year old sister for a few days.

‘Where is Luci?’ asked Teresa as soon as they walked through the door.

‘School, duh,’ said Samantha, and Teresa remembered that they’d opted to leave school early, not that the school knew that. She was skating on thin ice, any bad reports and she knew that she was risking her future, a future which felt more and more important as time went on. Things at home weren’t good and she didn’t much fancy allowing it to get any worse. Still, the occasional missed afternoon wasn’t going to do too much damage, she hoped.

‘Where do we start?’ asked Lin, handing the book to Samantha who cracked it open and laid it down in the middle of the lounge.

‘I think we should close the curtains and turn out the lights,’ said Samantha. ‘Tessie, light the candles and we’ll follow the instructions.’

Teresa sat down on the floor, lit the candle with a small box of matches they’d bought from the drug store, and crossed her legs in front of her. Lin and Samantha sat down opposite until they’d formed a sort of triangle. The whole thing felt kind of ridiculous, and the fact that Lin and Samantha took the thing so seriously, made it all the more funny. But she went along with it anyway, if only to be able to laugh about it later. Lin and Samantha might have been keen to hook her up with Greg, but what she hadn’t told them was that they already had a date planned for Saturday. Perhaps she’d wait to tell them until after the spell had potentially come into effect, then they’d believe it worked.


	2. Chapter 2

**2014**

The local teenagers had to take buses to Wichita Falls for high school so Abbot and Lisbon drove down there in the hope of speaking to friends and teachers of the victims.

‘How’s Jane?’ asked Abbot, glancing briefly at Lisbon before turning his attention back to the road.

‘He’s fine,’ said Lisbon, absentmindedly, but a smile forced its way onto her face. ‘He’s good.’

‘He rang me before we got here, told me to look after you.’

Lisbon shook her head and lowered her eyes, a slight flush spreading across her face. ‘Of course he did.’

They pulled up in the parking lot of the school, a school not unlike many of the high schools Lisbon visited as part of her jobs at the County Sheriff’s Office in Washington and at the CBI. The building was mostly single storey; except for the main building which Abbot led them towards. Students milled around in groups and Lisbon felt herself, momentarily, transported back to her childhood.

‘We’re with the FBI,’ said Abbot, holding out his badge. The woman at reception lifted up a phone and within minutes the school principal was taking them to a quad in the centre of the school where they were to wait for the students they’d asked to see.

‘Alison McDowry?’ asked Lisbon, motioning for the young girl to take a seat opposite them. She had long dark hair that hung around her eyes, which she averted at all costs. A pendant almost identical to the victims rested against her chest. ‘We’re very sorry about your friends.’

The girl didn’t speak at first, her eyes filled with tears which she forced aside with a strength that Lisbon recognised in herself. A weakness that she knew wouldn’t help Alison in the long run.

‘We got these notes,’ she whispered, telling the table more than Lisbon and Abbot. ‘Someone sent us notes because, because they didn’t like that we’re Wicca.’

Abbot sighed beside Lisbon and she noticed the sadness in his eyes, sympathy which made him such a loveable person in spite of his authority.

‘Who sent you the notes, Alison?’ he asked, lowering his head to get a good look at her eyes. She lifted her head up to meet his gaze before lowering it again.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, pulling an envelope out of her bag. ‘They didn’t say.’

Lisbon took the envelope and pulled out the letter, like an old ransom note with newspaper cut outs that read: You shall not permit a sorceress to live – Exodus 22:18

‘We thought it was someone making fun of us or some religious nut job who didn’t approve of what we were doing. We…I…didn’t think they’d take it this far.’ The girl’s tears came faster and more forceful, until she couldn’t hold them back any longer. Her face streamed with the grief for her friends. ‘We didn’t think he’d kill anybody and now, now, there’s just me left.’

Abbot nodded his head and slipped away from the bench, his cell phone already out of his pocket. Lisbon reached a hand out to the girls in an attempt to provide her with some comfort.

‘I’ve got a police car on its way over to bring you home,’ said Abbot, returning to the table. ‘We are going to have someone stay with your family to keep you safe. Is there anything else that you think is important? That you need to tell us, even if you think you might get in trouble for it.’

‘No, no,’ she said, shaking her head and recapturing her hand from Lisbon. ‘We were normal teenagers, we watched movies and painted each other’s nails and we hung out at the diner almost every night. We just liked to do spells and shit.’

x

'Boss, he's in the interview room,' said Cho, handing Abbot the file they'd put together.

'What's his story?'

'His name is Aaron Smith, he works at the diner and lives in town. When we said we were FBI he tried to run, said he was worried about parking tickets.’

‘Sounded fishy to me,’ said Fischer.

‘He claims he doesn’t even know the girls,' said Cho.

'Do you believe him?'

'Not sure,' said Cho. 'There's something about him that's not right.'

Abbot flicked through the file in front of him. ‘Lisbon, assist.’

She followed him into the interview room. Abbot placed the file on the table and sat down, Lisbon sat beside him, her eyes connecting instantly with Aaron Smith.

'I,' she began to say but then closed her mouth again; she stood up and marched right out of the room before the man could respond.

The hallway was a lot brighter than the interview room, which made Lisbon wonder if perhaps she was seeing things in the dull light. She took a few steps down the hall until she reached the door to the viewing room; she pushed down on the handle and almost ran into Cho as she entered.

'Everything alright?' he asked, his eyebrows furrowed briefly.

'Sure,' said Lisbon, doubting her own words as she found herself unable to say the things she'd intended to. She smiled at her colleagues and watched the man through the glass.

'What do you know about the three girls?' asked Abbot, continuing with the interview.

Lisbon barely listened to his answer and turned to Cho. 'You said his name is Aaron Smith?'

'That's what his licence says.'

'Okay,' Lisbon replied, backing out of the room and returning to the interview room. She stood outside the door, her heart racing inside her chest as she considered what was about to happen. She rested a hand upon the door handle and counted to ten before going back into the room. 'Mr Smith, my name is Teresa Lisbon, I'm with the FBI.'

'I know who you are, Reese,' he said, looking her in the eye.

‘Teresa, what is going on?’ asked Abbot, looking between the two of them.

Lisbon swallowed a lump which had lodged itself temporarily in the back of her throat; she couldn't find her voice, she couldn't even move.

'Nothing,’ said Lisbon, sitting down. ‘Wh, what is it that you're doing here, Mr Smith?'

'That’s all you're going to ask?' he asked, resting his fists upon the table in front of him.

'That’s all I'm gonna ask, Mr SMITH,' said Lisbon, emphasising his name as though she needed to say it over and over in her mind for it to make sense. It did make sense; if someone wanted to get away, the best thing they could do was change their name to one of the most common surnames in the world.

‘Lisbon,’ said Abbot. ‘A word.’

But before he could coax her out of the room, Aaron Smith began talking again.

'Teresa, Reese.' He reached a hand out to Lisbon’s but she pulled them back and hid them away under the table. The authority she might have had in the beginning quickly disappeared the moment he spoke to her with such a tone.

'Why did you lie to my colleagues?' she asked, looking down at the file in front of her. 'It says that your name is Aaron Smith and you work in a diner...'

'I can explain,' he began, but Lisbon cut him off.

'Like hell you can,' she snapped, closing the file and slamming it down on the table between them. 'Mr Smith, you came across the girls when you were working in the diner, is this correct?'

'Yes.'

'Did you ever talk to the girls?'

'I served them coffee, so yes.'

'Did you ever discuss anything personal with the girls?'

'One of them was upset about an argument with her friend, if that counts as personal. But I barely knew them; they’re just kids who come in from time to time.'

'You're lying.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Yes you are, Mr Smith, you talked to them quite a lot, didn't you?'

'I, no,’ he stuttered, glancing towards Abbot then back to Lisbon. ‘I, why would you say such a thing?' 

'You took an interest in them; didn’t appreciate that they were messing around in witchcraft so you murdered them, one. by. one.'

Lisbon's voice remained calm, so much so that she found herself almost scared by her own actions. She sat back in her chair and watched as the man grew angrier and angrier, and though she knew that it would hurt to watch him blow up, she expected it.

But he didn't catch the bait; his voice remained level. 'You’re making that up, I did nothing of the sort, Reese, I didn't touch those girls.' 

'Yes, you did.' 

'No, I did not,' he attempted to defend himself, but Lisbon wasn't done.

'Yes. You did,' she shouted, slamming her hands down on the table as she stood up in front of him. The temple in her head pulsed with anger and she could feel herself losing control.

‘That is enough,’ said Abbot, standing up, wrapping a hand around Lisbon’s upper arm and leading her towards the door.

'Chip off the old block,’ said Aaron Smith, distracting Abbot long enough to let Lisbon free her arm. Her heart was racing, she knew that what she was doing was unprofessional, but in that moment she couldn’t see straight. She had to hear what Mr Smith had to say for himself. ‘I see, hope, there's no grandchildren around having to deal with that,' he said, staring up at her with a cool head.

'You little,' she snapped, leaning forward until their noses were almost touching and Lisbon's eyes were trained on the man’s.

Cho and Fischer opened the door as Abbot wrapped his arms around Lisbon and pulled her away, leaving Cho and Fischer to finish the interview.

'Alright, alright,' she snapped, pushing him away and walking out of the room. Before she exited she turned back to Mr Smith and glared at him. 'I am nothing like you.'

Abbot pushed her forward and she walked out into the hallway, down the corridor and out the back door.

**1988**

The night was stormy; a torrential downpour of heavy rain caused streets to become rivers, rivers to become bigger rivers and Teresa got stuck at the bowling alley past curfew. She waited in the entrance hall, with Greg by her side.

‘I remember when I was three or four,’ she said, recalling a memory she liked to think about sometimes. ‘My mom had to sleep in my bed so that I’d sleep through the night, I hated storms so much that I’d scream and scream without her there.’

‘Sounds sweet, you have a good mom.’

‘Had,’ she said, avoiding his gaze as she admitted to a past she didn’t like to talk about.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

By eleven, the alley was closing so they were forced out into the night. Greg drove her home and they stood on the porch, under the battle of wind and rain, as they shared a goodnight kiss.

When she walked into the house, her stomach twisted up in knots, her footsteps felt lighter and the world made sense for the first time in a long while. The house was dark, so naturally Teresa assumed that he father was asleep, or still out. She'd hoped for a moment that it was the former, the thought of what could happen on such a night, otherwise, was too much for her to think about.

Her worries dispelled at the sound of snoring coming from the kitchen. She crept through the house, not bothering to turn on the lights as she fumbled about in the dark. There, under the light of the moon, her father lay on the floor, his chest rising and falling with the sound of sleep.

'Oh Dad,' she said, kneeling down on the floor. She reached out to her father's shoulders and attempted to roll him over so that she could lift him to his feet. It took all her effort, and a little more besides, but eventually she pulled him up against her shoulder and half dragged him through the house towards the master bedroom.

'Why do you keep doing this, Dad?' asked Teresa, laying him down on the bed and brushing his hair back fom his forehead. Despite everything, she still felt a strong pull to her only living parent, something which she expected would last a lifetime. He was her father, he would always be her father, it didn't matter what he did to her and her brothers; she had to remember the good times they'd shared.

She sat down on the bed beside him, a peaceful form as he continued to sleep through the storm. The window flashed and a bolt of lightning brightened the sky instantly before a loud crack of thunder sounded overhead. She felt a little scared, reminiscent of a time when everything was different, when she only had one younger brother and her parents still acted as though they were in love and showed just how much they loved her by keeping her safe from the storm. She longed for the day after Tommy was born when her father brought her and James home from visiting the new baby. A horrible storm, not unlike that night’s, built up steam until she was shaking in her bed. James was still only a toddler, a toddler who slept through anything. But Teresa had lain in her bed shaking and crying until her dad had come in, climbed into bed with her and held her until she'd fallen asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**2014**

Lisbon stood in a small yard at the back of the office where she marched back and forth a few times, her heart racing and her mouth dry. She tried to ignore the fact that Abbot watched her from the side-lines, standing in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

'I'm fine,' said Lisbon, trying to ignore Abbot’s stare, but her voice came out small and weak. She lowered herself onto a picnic bench and covered her face with her hands.

'Who is he, Teresa?'

Lisbon lifted her head and looked at Abbot, he sat down beside her and tried a sympathetic smile.

'My dad. He's supposed to be dead.'

'So I heard.'

'I didn't know he was here, I didn't know he was the suspect.'

'That's why you left the room,’ he said, connecting the dots. ‘You saw him, you freaked out and then you didn't feel you could say anything.'

'Something like that,' said Lisbon, leaning forward onto the table. She sighed and stared up into the sky.

'He used to get angry?'

'After my mom died, he drank; he got angry, yeah,' Lisbon admitted, cautious of what she was revealing to her boss about her life previous to law enforcement. She didn't like to talk about it at the best of times, but to share said information with her superiors felt wrong on so many levels.

'The man who owns the diner seems to think he's sober; quite the hero, too, he's a volunteer at the fire station.'

Lisbon looked up, a crease of the brow. 'Used to be a firefighter.'

'I'll make sure Fischer and Cho get a confession out of him.'

'You think he's good for it?'

'I don't know. We'll get some answers.'

'Thanks, Abbot,' said Lisbon, standing up as he walked back into the police station.

In the few minutes that he'd gone, Lisbon found herself wandering out into the street behind the station, her legs carrying her towards the small centre of town where she wandered around the square. Of all the places in the United States that her father could have run away to, it was there; a few hours from where she’d been living for the past year.

The hardware store, the book store, the church, the fire station, it was all a pretty average place made up of ordinary people going about their day to day activities. Children went to the local school, a preschool ran in the church hall every weekday, it was a sleepy backwater town where nothing ever happened and no one ever did the wrong thing. The sheriff was stationed across the county and only visited when anything bad happened; the sheriff’s office was probably locked up 360 days out of the year.

It was a far cry from the bustling city of Chicago where she'd grown up; her father had worked at the fire station where he was called out to countless fires every single day of the year. Lisbon didn't imagine there were many big fires in the town, the most he probably did in a week was put out a waste fire and get a cat down from a tree. For a moment, she found herself wondering if her father missed his previous life, the one where he was a father to four children, a husband to a woman who was unfairly ripped from the world when Lisbon was just twelve. Did he still think of her mother? Did he still miss her? Or was she as much a part of his past as his own children?

Once she'd reached the other side of town, Lisbon walked a few hundred feet until she reached a quiet street on the way out of town. She kicked hard at the dirt floor, her shoes covered in desert dust as she smashed her toes against the ground over and over and over again. Her heart raced and her temple throbbed, she was furious, worse than furious, there were no words for the level of anger she held inside.

Her whole life had been formed on two very significant events in her life; her mother’s untimely death and her father’s downward spiral resulting in his own. She had buried him long ago and yet here he was, turning up at a crime scene in the middle of a desert town. There were no words to explain how she felt.

She reached for her cell phone, dialled Jane’s numbed and waited. When it clicked over to voicemail she wanted to cry, not because he wasn’t there to answer her call, but because she could hear his voice and he wasn’t by her side with arms ready to catch her.

**1988**

The phone rang three times whilst Teresa made dinner for her brothers, they ate it hungrily, so much so that it occurred to her that she’d forgotten to make them lunch. She doubted her father had found the time to do it so they’d probably gone without. She hated forgetting, didn’t want the school to realise the state they were living in. If they did, they might take them away from her father. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world but she couldn’t bear to be separated from her siblings, not when they’d already lost their mother.

‘Go and get your homework done,’ said Teresa, sending her brothers off to their rooms.

‘I don’t got none, Reese,’ said Joseph, a toothy grin spread across his face.

‘You haven’t got any.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Nearly,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘Go and read a book or play a game, I have to clean up.’

He did as he was told leaving her to a sink full of dishes and a week’s worth of chilli. She scooped it into containers and stored them in the freezer, leaving a dish out for her dad for when he got home. When she’d nearly done, the phone rang again and she finally answered it.

‘Hello, the Lisbon house, Teresa speaking,’ she recited only for the person on the other end of the line to laugh at her.

‘Sorry,’ he said after a moment, and her heart flipped over inside her chest.

‘Greg?’

‘Yeah, it’s me; do you always have to sound so formal when you answer the phone?’ he asked.

‘Mom taught me to answer the phone properly,’ she said, her voice trailing off. Whilst she didn’t mind talking about the things she remembered of life with her mom, it was always harder when she was forced to explain herself.

‘Sorry,’ he apologised again, before continuing the call. ‘Can you come out?’

‘Can’t,’ she said, drying a couple of dishes and returning them to the cupboard. ‘I’ve gotta look after my brothers.’

‘Can I come over?’

Silence. She couldn’t find the words to respond. She’d had the same conversation with Samantha and Lin a couple hours earlier. Greg had driven her home several times, he picked her up sometimes, but she’d never let him inside the house. The same feelings she got when social workers or the school showed an interest came flooding through her and she clammed up.

Her voiced wobbled as she spoke, the lie coming easily. ‘I can’t have visitors when my dad’s not here.’

‘Did you do your math homework?’ he asked, moving the conversation along. Teresa let out a sigh, the weight previously sitting on her shoulders dissipated slightly. ‘I can’t get question four.’

‘Haven’t looked at it yet,’ she said, reaching for her schoolbag. She sat down at the kitchen table, in the only spot the phone would stretch and pulled out her homework. The words danced about in front of her eyes, she wasn’t sure she’d get any of the questions. Sometimes she wondered how she’d ever get through high school.

‘Do you have plans for the dance next month?’

‘What kind of plans?’ she asked, feeling her cheeks redden and her chest expand with joy.

‘I was hoping you’d come with me,’ he replied, and her heart seemed to grow even bigger. Teresa let out a long, deep breath, trying to contain the feeling of elation. Then impending doom appeared to hit and she retreated from her happy place.

‘I’d have to ask my dad, he doesn’t like me going out much.’

‘You’re a kid, Teresa, you deserve to go out and have fun. Can’t you find a way?’

She tried to find the words to explain, but no words came, until she settled for the generic response she used so many times. ‘I’ll try.’

The door to the kitchen opened, her father stood there looked unsteady on his feet and the scent of alcohol filled the room. Teresa said a hushed goodbye and hung up the phone.

‘Hi Daddy,’ she said, standing up. ‘I’ve made you some dinner.’

‘What is it?’ he asked, sitting down at the table and cradling his head. ‘And talk quieter, you talk too loudly.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, doing as he asked. ‘It’s chilli.’

‘No more fucking chilli,’ he said, standing up and going to the fridge. Teresa stood in the middle of the kitchen with the bowl of chilli in her hands, unsure of what to do with it. Her father took a bottle of beer from the fridge and opened it, swallowing a large mouthful. ‘It’s always fucking chilli. Don’t you know how to make anything else?’

‘I, I’m…’ She began to speak but the words caught in her throat.

‘You useless girl, you’ll never amount to anything, what use are you? You can’t cook, you can’t clean, you can’t do fuck all.’

‘I’m sorry.’ The words finally tumbled from her lips only for her father’s hand to come down against her cheek.

‘Don’t be fucking sorry, Reese, be better. I don’t want no snivelling apologies, you hear me? No more fucking chilli.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, throwing the chilli in the trash can, washing out the bowl and disappearing off to her bedroom.

A lump settled in the back of her throat until her bedroom door was closed, in the sanctuary of her room she let the tears fall down her cheeks, her shoulders shook from the overwhelming feelings that she couldn’t quite contain.

By morning her face was still red and blotchy with a mixture of tears of a handprint. Teresa searched the drawers in the bathroom for her mother’s old makeup case and slipped it into her schoolbag. She’d tried to wear it before but her father didn’t like her to do so, said it made her look too old and too much like a slut. She left the house with her brothers in tow, dropping them off at school before she went to a local diner and applied the makeup in the washrooms.

She arrived at school fifteen minutes late, looking awfully orange and not at all like herself.

‘Did something explode on your face?’ Samantha asked as their history teacher called names. She knew it was meant in jest but the attack of her attempts to cover up her father’s abuse stung and she felt like she was about to cry.

For the rest of the day she managed to avoid most of her friends, citing a library visit at lunchtime and being too focused on her studies in class. They shrugged it off and made silly jokes, all of which hit her harder than she wished. It was only when Greg caught her by her locker at the end of the day that she couldn’t hide any longer.

‘Your brothers have after school activities today, don’t they?’ he asked, interlinking his fingers with her own. She allowed him the physical contact, felt the desire to follow his lead and accepted his offer to walk her to the park across the road.

‘I suppose I can stay for a bit,’ she said, sitting down on the park bench.

Before she could say anything more he’d captured her lips with his own and she was putty in his hands. His tongue danced along her lower lip and she scooped it up into her mouth and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She longed for the moment to never end, to be there in his arms for the rest of her life, if only it meant she never had to face home again.

‘I think you’re amazing, Teresa,’ he said, his lips travelled across to her ear. It tickled and she laughed lightly, until his kisses moved downwards and he was kissing the side of her neck with such force she expected him to leave a mark.

‘How about ice cream?’ she asked, pulling away and standing up. ‘I love the cherry blossom they have at the truck.’

‘Fine,’ Greg said, rolling his eyes and following her across the park towards the ice cream truck. ‘But you owe me a kiss.’

‘Later, ice cream first.’


	4. Chapter 4

**2014**

The next day, Lisbon arrived late to the sheriff's office. Her alarm barely infiltrated her dream ridden sleep and she was only woken half an hour later by a reminder that she had agreed to ring Jane. The rest of the team were already there, including Wylie who had flown in with some up to date technology.

‘Hi there,’ she said, with a smile. ‘They finally let you out of the office again.’

‘The internet connection here is so slow that a hacker couldn’t access diddly-squat, someone had to bring the equipment,’ said Wylie, tapping away at a laptop.

‘Someone has to work it, too,’ said Abbot.

'Any luck with Mr Smith?' Lisbon asked as she sat down beside Fischer, the formality only strange to those who knew. Abbot sent her a sympathetic smile and she tried to maintain a modicum of strength.

'We've had a few developments since we left last night,' Cho replied. 'The coroner's findings show that there were traces of semen on the pendants.'

'You think they were raped?'

'It looks likely,' said Abbot. ‘The parents didn’t think there were any boyfriends on the scene.’

He handed the case file to Lisbon, who carefully read through everything in front of her. Once she'd finished looking at the results, she glanced up to find Abbot staring at her.

'What is it?' asked Lisbon, a lump settling uncomfortably in the back of her throat. 'Did you find something else, something to connect him to the murders?'

'I think we need to talk,' said Abbot, standing up and placing the casefile on the desk. He picked up an additional file. 'Cho, Fischer, update Wylie on the rest of the case. Teresa, come with me.'

She followed him down the corridor towards an interview room, a sense of foreboding hitting her from all sides. Why did it feel like she was about to be reprimanded?

'You want to speak to me?'

'About your father,' Abbot replied, sitting down.

Her instinct was to sit beside him in the seat she'd used to interrogate her father, but at the last moment, Lisbon remembered the circumstance in which she was there. Sitting across the interview table from Abbot felt strange, uncomfortable even.

'We could have done this out in the office,' Lisbon said, wishing that they could be out in neutral space where she had felt considerably less awkward.

'I thought you might appreciate the privacy,' said Abbot, opening his file. 'From what I understand, your father became drunk and abusive towards you and your siblings.'

Lisbon hesitated. She hadn't told Abbot about her childhood and wasn’t sure what information the FBI had about her earlier years. The fact that he jumped head first into the bulk of her troubled youth was terrifying. Rarely was she required to be so honest and upfront about what had happened to her. Whilst she tended to put her past to one side on a day to day basis, it had formed her; she wouldn't be the person she was today without it. That didn't mean that she enjoyed sharing very private aspects of her childhood.

'That is true,' said Lisbon, her voice quieter than she'd intended it to be.

'Who did he hurt more, you or your brothers?' asked Abbot.

'My brother,' she replied, leaning forward and placing her hands upon the table between them. 'Tommy, was his, his favourite punching bag.'

'Was he violent towards you?'

'Sometimes.'

'How much is sometimes?'

Lisbon swallowed, her throat still aching as she felt tears creep up into the backs of her eyes. The effort of forcing them to remain hidden was that little too painful. Whilst she wasn't afraid of discussing aspects of her past, she very rarely had to discuss it in such detail. In that moment she longed for Jane’s comforting touch, his fingers interlinked with hers, his leg resting against her own. Before they’d got together she’d managed, but now that they were a couple, she longed for his support.

'He usually hurt me once a week, minimum; sometimes he smacked me across the face, other times he grabbed at my wrist and wouldn't let go. A few months before he died, before he was supposed to have died,' Lisbon said, correcting herself. 'He took us all out for a special dinner, it was James's birthday and he wanted burritos. We didn't make it to the restaurant, he jumped a red light, a car went into the side of ours. Joseph spent a week in the hospital. Tommy, James and I got lucky. If the other vehicle had been any bigger, we'd likely have all died.'

A silence fell across the interview room. Lisbon wiped hurriedly at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. The last thing she wanted to do was show her emotions in front of her boss. She wasn’t sure it would have felt any better had she been talking to Cho, and they'd worked together for over a decade. Still, it crossed the boundaries between colleagues and Lisbon wasn't about to start testing them now. Then again, the situation wasn't common. Usually they both sat on the same side of the table and she wasn't the one in trouble.

'I have to ask,' said Abbot, the moment that Lisbon showed signs of recovering from her small breakdown. 'Did your father ever sexually abuse you?'

The question lingered momentarily, hovering in the space between them as though Lisbon didn't want to allow it into her headspace. Eventually, though, it broke through and she was forced to accept that the question had been asked, whether she wanted to answer it or not.

'No,' she replied quickly, attempting to maintain eye contact with Abbot. 'No, never, not at all.'

His patience did all that it needed to, a trick which Lisbon had seen him use, and used herself a multitude of times. The silence became uncomfortable as Abbot played the interrogation game.

'No,' she tried again, though the word’s purpose reversed having repeated it one too many times.

'I’m sorry Teresa, I don't believe you,' Abbot replied, leaning a little closer. 'The more I know, the easier it'll be to understand whether your father could have committed these crimes. If there's information from his past which can help, I need to know.'

She knew the drill; she knew why he was asking the things he was asking and yet, having insider knowledge did little but make her hateful of the system. Why did she push innocent people so hard? The answer didn't matter, but Lisbon knew full well why they did the things they did.

'Once,' she said, letting the word linger in the air for a moment before continuing. 'It's not what you think. He was drunk, he didn't know what he was doing.'

'Perhaps he was drunk on the night of the murders,' said Abbot, reminding her in such few words that her perception of past events was clouded by years of processing. She'd played the incident over repeatedly in her mind until it warped and became something quite unlike the reality that it was.

'I was sixteen,' she began thinking carefully as the words spilled out, words which she'd never actually spoken to anyone before. In those moments where she told Abbot of her most hidden secret, she found a sense of calm falling over her, as though sharing it was finally relieving her of the guilt and anger she'd carried all those years.

**1988**

Teresa left Greg on the front porch with a smile on her face, her fingers retracing the steps his lips had taken moments before. Her heart was filled with hope and anticipation, a sense of happiness that she hadn’t quite been able to grasp for a long, long time. She felt giddy with nerves and excitement. When she came to a stop in the kitchen, her whole world came down with a smash so violent that Teresa thought she was going to collapse from the pain. For one amazing night, everything had been perfect. But it was back to reality, a reality which Teresa hadn’t prepared herself for in that very moment.

‘You’re still up,’ she said, sitting down at the table opposite him. He didn’t look up, kept his eyes on the glass of whisky in front of him.

‘I saw you on the porch with that boy,’ he said, lifting his gaze and sending daggers in Teresa’s direction. She swallowed and her throat began to ache. She rarely saw that look on his face, but she’d lived with him long enough to know that it usually preceded her worst nightmare. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’

‘No, Daddy, no,’ she replied, shaking her head in earnest. The mere suggestion made Teresa’s stomach curl; she wasn’t that kind of girl, she’d never have sex with a boy whom she barely knew.

‘You’re lying,’ he replied, standing up, his glass sliding off the table and smashing on the floor. ‘You’re lying, you little slut.’

‘No,’ she cried, her eyes filling with tears, more at the thought of what was to come than anything.

‘You are,’ he shouted, his voice growing so loud that Teresa expected it might wake the neighbours. She half hoped that it would as she cowered under his raised fist. In just a few moments she was going to take the weight of his anger, she prayed silently, begging God to let her be.

Her prays quickly answered, her father belched loudly and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Teresa shook on the spot, her skin icy to the touch and her throat dry. She stared down at her drunken father as he snorted and rolled onto his back.

‘Dad?’ she asked, staring down at the greying man. She knelt on the linoleum and poked him gently in the side. He barely moved. Teresa’s heart fluttered with the pain of what could have happened. ‘Daddy?’

She tried again, a quick poke in his side, then she rocked him rapidly back and forth until his body convulsed and vomit spilled out across the floor. Teresa jumped back and ran to the faucet, covering a small towel in water and wiping it across her father’s face.

‘Gerroff,’ he moaned, clawing and pushing at Teresa until she sat back on her heels and watched him sadly.

‘You need to get to bed,’ she said, stroking back his hair and attempting to clean his face once more. He allowed her to wipe at his mouth long enough to remove the majority of the mess and then she crouched down and rolled him across the floor. ‘Come on, Daddy.’

It took every last bit of energy that Teresa had to roll him onto his front and lift him up against her back, before she guided him through the lounge, down the hallway and into the master bedroom.

‘Sleep time now,’ she cooed, like she was talking to Joseph after a nightmare. ‘Let’s get you into bed.’

In the swiftest of movements, Teresa rolled him onto the bed, the force of his body going down so strong that she accidentally fell on top of him. He opened his eyes fully and pushed her down onto the empty space on the bed beside him, the spot where her mother used to sleep. Teresa lay there for a moment, allowing her father to stare into her eyes with a drunken smile on his face.

‘Y, you look so, so, so much like your, like your mama,’ he whispered, his face curling up into a smile that she rarely saw. It made her smile in return. She cherished the feel of his finger brushing the hair back from her eyes like he did when she was small. ‘My baby girl.’

‘I miss you, Daddy,’ said Teresa, smiling under his touch.

He closed his eyes and shook his head and when he opened them again, he’d changed, his smile had faded and he looked angry once more.

‘Ruthie,’ he snarled. ‘Come ‘ere Ruthie.’

It happened quicker than she could have anticipated, so much so that she didn’t quite know what was happening before it was too late. He rolled on top of her, his lips pressing roughly upon her cheek and he unbuckled his belt. Teresa writhed underneath him, the weight of his body a little too much and she felt the breath escape her and not come back.

‘Daddy,’ she cried out; a quiet, painful whisper and then she felt it, his pants pushed down to his ankles and his groin pressed uncomfortable against her body.

‘Oh Ruthie,’ he called out, sliding her underwear to one side and slipping off his boxer shorts before roughly forcing himself inside of her.

‘No,’ she shouted, but it was too late and he rocked back and forth, back and forth, the pain of him inside of her insurmountable and Teresa could do nothing but lie there and wait for it to end.

‘Oh,’ he grunted, pushing inside of her one final, painful time, before collapsing on top of her.

Teresa lay frozen on the bed, her father snoring loudly on top of her, their bodies still connected and her cheeks stained with tears. She let out quick, pained sobs, as she struggled to let out a breath. Her mind was absent of most things, she couldn’t think of anything much to think about in that moment. Her mind had been wiped in much the same way her body had been. She pushed him off her and continued to lie beside him, her heart racing inside her chest as she fought through the pain of her ordeal.

‘Dear God,’ she said and began praying. ‘Please take him away, give me peace from his torment and keep me safe from harm.’

It was only then, once it had all ended, that Teresa realised the cut she had on her arm from where she’d had to lift her father off the floor. The broken glass she hadn’t noticed causing her to bleed out across her clothing. She closed her eyes and continued to pray, hoping beyond hope that maybe someone was going to come and take her away from her father, the man who just moments before, raped her.


	5. Chapter 5

**2014**

‘I think you need to take the day off,’ said Abbot, resting a hand over Lisbon’s. She wiped at her eyes, regretted the weakness she’d shown in front of her boss. He was right and she knew deep down that it was the right thing to do; she’d have recommended it herself had she been in charge.

‘I need to work,’ she said, letting out a long, deep breath and maintaining a level of calm. ‘Please.’

‘Okay,’ Abbot said. ‘I need you to help Wylie.’

Lisbon nodded her head and after a moment left the room, she visited the washrooms to clean up and then joined Wylie at his computer station.

‘What can I do?’ she asked, sitting down beside him.

‘Well, I have some data that I need to analyse, but I don’t think you’re familiar with the program. There’s some police reports, oh, but the information hasn’t come through yet. I’m waiting on something from Houston. There’s the DNA results, they just came through.’

Lisbon tried not to laugh at Wylie’s train of thought, had she been in a different state of mind she’d probably have tried to get an answer sooner but after the last hour she needed the light relief. She took the file and thanked him.

‘What?’ she said, looking at the results. ‘Wylie, you’re helping me with an interview, get Mr Smith out of the holding cell.’

‘I, I, I,’ he said, his voice trailing off as he stared at her. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘Okay.’ Before she could ask him to hurry up he’d left the room with a set of handcuffs, the keys to the cells and his Glock.

She knew deep down that it was a conflict of interest to continue the charade of being a professional when her father was the man sat opposite her. She also knew that dragging Wylie into it was wrong; he was too inexperienced to deal with any fall out, too inexperienced to stop her from doing something that could damage the case. There was a reason Abbot told her to work with Wylie and it was not so she could break the rules.

‘Mr Smith,’ Lisbon said, pretending for just a moment that he was anything but the father who abused her all those years ago. ‘We have some new evidence, your DNA was found at the third crime scene.

‘That’s impossible,’ he said, staring at her aghast. ‘I didn’t do anything to those girls.’

‘Didn’t you?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows and staring deep into his familiar eyes. For a moment she felt like a little girl again, staring into her daddy’s eyes until they shared a smile. Unlike her seven year old self, she felt decades of hatred battle with the happier memories she’d pushed aside.

‘Reese, I didn’t touch those girls. You have to believe me.’

‘That’s the thing, Mr Smith, I don’t.’

‘Stop with the Mr Smith,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You don’t need to call me that.’

‘That’s your name, isn’t it?’ She knew the question was vindictive, a stab at him and everything he’d done since his supposed death all those years ago.

‘Please, Reese.’

‘You attacked those girls. You raped them. You murdered them. The sooner you admit that the better it’ll be for you.’

‘I didn’t touch them, I certainly didn’t do…that, I wouldn’t,’ he said, his voice trailing off into silence.

‘You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t rape them, like you didn’t rape your own sixteen year old daughter,’ her voice grew louder as the anger she’d managed to maintain became harder to control. Her heart raced inside her chest. ‘You are a liar, Mr Smith, you’re a fucking liar.’

‘What? No! I would never,’ he whispered, shaking his head. ‘I never touched you and I didn’t hurt those girls. I didn’t do it, I, I didn’t hurt them.’

‘Tell me the truth.’

‘I am.’

‘Then why was your DNA found on the bodies?’

‘Err, one…’ said Wylie, interrupting before his voice trailed off. ‘One body.’

‘Why was your DNA found on one of the bodies?’ Lisbon corrected, angling her glare at Wylie for the briefest moment before standing up and leaning across the table towards her father. ‘Why are you lying to me, Mr Smith? Tell the truth; tell the fucking truth for once in your life.’

‘That is enough!’

Lisbon turned to find Abbot standing in the doorway, his temple pulsing with anger as he shook his head. She felt her face grow red, not with anger but with shame. Everything she’d done was wrong, and she knew that, but she’d been so caught up that she couldn’t seem to control herself. Before Abbot could force her from the room, she hurried past him, stopping in the corridor as she struggled to breath.

‘Get back to your computer,’ Abbot shouted to Wylie, and Lisbon felt terrible.

Wylie had only been following orders, orders which she had no right to give. She made a note to relieve him of any blame at the first available opportunity.

‘Teresa, the office, now,’ said Abbot, marching down the corridor without another word. She followed him, aware of the uncomfortable tightness sitting on her chest. She entered the sheriff’s work room and took the seat Abbot offered to her, hanging her head in shame. ‘You were out of line.’

‘I know,’ she said, choking back the tears.

‘You will take time off, you are too close to this case and I cannot have your jeopardising a conviction.’

Lisbon nodded her head but stayed silent. Abbot continued to reprimand her and she just took it, barely listening to a word he said as she beat herself up internally. She’d done the wrong thing and she was being punished for it. She knew the drill; she just hoped she hadn’t damaged her reputation enough to warrant the termination of her contract.

‘We will be charging your father,’ Abbot said, his voice softening. Lisbon lifted her head, though avoided looking into his eyes. ‘The DNA evidence is clear, we have evidence to charge him and we will. But you need to do as I ask; you need to stay out of this, Teresa. Or he’ll get away with it. Now leave.’

The walk did her good, to get outside and get some fresh air helped revitalise her somewhat. It didn’t stop her feeling like the broken schoolgirl she once was, though. It hurt too much to be in the same room with that man. Without even trying she ended up in the churchyard, wandering between the gravestones that had sat there for decades. She longed to return to her mother’s grave, somewhere she hadn’t been in at least ten years. The pain of losing her mother had never really lessened, very different from how she’d felt losing her father.

**1988**

At the sound of the door shutting, Teresa jumped, almost spilling milk on the floor as she prepared her cereal. She sat down at the table and focused her attention on the bowl of fake - cheaper - Fruit Loops and not at her father, who entered the kitchen.

‘Morning Reese,’ he said, opening a cupboard and placing a packet of flour on the kitchen counter. ‘How about pancakes for breakfast?’

A lump settled in the back of Teresa’s throat, a lump which hurt in her attempt to quell the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She allowed her hair to fall over her face and continued to eat her cereal.

‘What do you say?’ he tried again, stepping closer to the edge of the table. Teresa could smell his shower gel and cologne, a mixture of scents that made her feel sickly. The previous night’s events were enough to make her want to vomit on their own.

‘I have school,’ she replied, continuing to eat her cereal.

Eventually, Aaron Lisbon returned the flour to the cupboard and sat down opposite his daughter. She could feel his eyes on her and she wondered if he remembered the night before as vividly as she did. The disgusting taste of her father’s breathe lingering in the air as he bridged the gap between them. When he placed his hand on Teresa’s, she jumped, pulling it back quickly and using it to slap her father across the face.

‘What in God’s name, Teresa?’ he snapped, standing up so fast that his chair tumbled back onto the linoleum.

‘I,’ she tried to speak but her throat closed over.

‘I was trying to do a nice thing for my princess and that’s how you repay me?’ he shook his head and banged his fist on the table, a noise which made Teresa jump, her nerves already in tatters.

‘Trying to be nice?’ Teresa asked, standing up and staring him in the eye. ‘Like you were nice last night?’

His eye twitched and he shook his head again, a vigorous movement followed by another bang of his fist upon the table. Teresa’s bowl jerked from one spot to another a couple of centimetres away.

‘Jesus,’ he cried out, banging the table repeatedly until Teresa’s bowl slipped from the table and landed face down on the floor, the contents spilled across the linoleum. Aaron’s anger dissolved into something else, something which Teresa couldn’t quite place. His eyes softened, his lips curved uncomfortably at the edges and then he tilted his head to the side. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s too late,’ she replied, abandoning her cereal bowl and rushing past her father, through the house and out the front door.

School was a cacophony of noise, undesired social interaction and a lack of alone time. Teresa stood in the corridor, her back to the wall of disaster going on behind her, as she attempted to focus on which of her school books she needed that day.  
By the end of her final class, she had a headache resting painfully at both temples and her whole body ached from overuse. The day wasn’t anything unusual and she hadn’t even had gym class, but still, she felt as though she’d run a marathon, climbed Mount Everest and swam the Atlantic. Her friends tried to comfort her but she passed her mood off as hormones and did everything she could to avoid walking home with them.

The walk did little to fix the aches and pains, and having Tommy and Joseph fighting over a school book only made it worse. When James tried to explain – to her reprimand – why he’d been given a detention for the following day, Teresa wondered how she’d become the parent in her household. She was no longer seen as the older sister, but as the disciplinarian, the one who her brothers misbehaved in front of because she wasn’t hard enough on them, the one who would listen attentively to their excuses because she let them slide.

If she’d had the energy, perhaps she would have argued back for once since her mother’s death. She didn’t ask to be the pseudo-parent, nor did she ask for such a role. It had been thrust upon her and nobody, not even her own father, was doing anything to take it away from her.

The moment Teresa opened the door to find their father lay on the couch, a near-empty bottle of whisky in his arms, the boys scattered into their bedrooms like robots faithfully following their master’s orders. If only they could behave that way for her.

‘I wish you’d stop,’ she said, taking the whisky bottle out of Aaron’s arms and taking it into the kitchen. She poured the remainder of the contents down the drain and replaced the bottle back into her father’s arms. He shifted slightly and hugged the bottle tighter. Sometimes the smallest things made her feel like she was swimming, even if she was sinking below the surface.

A quick goodbye to her brothers, with a request that James look after the younger two, and Teresa took off down the street at a run. The aches disappeared, though her headache lingered, and she burnt off the steam that had been rising up since arriving home from school. Mostly, she felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness which she couldn’t quite place; was what her father did getting to her more than she’d admit? Probably. But she’d learned long ago to hide her feelings because in her house, they didn’t matter. Nobody’s feelings mattered, except their fathers and even then, he drank them away.

The family church was one that Teresa knew well, but in the face of her biggest crises yet she couldn’t face the people who knew her. They were already concerned about the welfare of her and her brothers; the absence of their father at so many services, and the frequently dishevelled appearance of her younger brothers made them suspicious. She wandered the streets nearby, searching for something which she couldn’t quite put her finger on, until she walked up the steps of an unfamiliar church.

‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,’ she said, crossing her hand across her chest and sitting down in the confessional. ‘It has been twelve days since my last confession. I accuse myself of the following sins.’

‘Go ahead,’ he said.

‘I hit my father this morning. I’ve never done anything like that before, whatever he does to me. I wouldn’t normally hit him.’

‘You must apologise to your father, dear child, you have broken one of the commandments but you can be absolved of this sin.’

‘I, I’ve also, I, I no longer hold my…my virginity. It wasn’t what I wanted, I didn’t, but it’s done.’

‘Absolution shall be yours, but from now on you must hold up your promise of chastity. Three Hail Marys before bed and another three every night for the next fortnight. Is that everything?’

‘Yes.’

‘I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’

Teresa made the sign of the cross and stayed silent, until the confession was complete.

‘Thanks be to God,’ she said, leaving the confessional and exiting the church before she could see the face of the man she’d confessed to. But even that didn’t make her feel better, the truth was not something she felt able to share and for that she didn’t feel as though her heart had been liberated.


	6. Chapter 6

**2014**

The solitude made Lisbon feel more stressed than she had at any point in the last few days. Not only was having a break against her better judgement, but it also gave her head the time and space she didn’t need – or want – in order to think about her situation. The last twenty five years had been difficult for various reasons, none more so than the first years after her father’s disappearance. Despite everything, she had still felt grief over his supposed death, they all had done.

‘Can I help you with anything?’

Lisbon jumped at the sound of a man’s voice. When she turned to look, she saw a man with a kind smile and two large dimples, a man who she noticed was wearing a clerical collar. She stopped and returned his smile.

‘I was just passing,’ she said, though she could feel his eyes giving her an extra amount of attention.

‘You look a little sad,’ he replied. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘Not at all,’ said Lisbon. ‘I’m fine, really.’

‘Well, if you find that you’d like someone to talk to, or just somewhere to have some peace, my door is open.’

‘Thank you.’

She continued to stroll through the graveyard. The final resting place of so many; she used to think graveyards were a happy place, where people could go to remember, once the funeral was over. But now that she stood surrounded by graves of babies, children, adults and the elderly, she realised how sad it really was. The graveyard would always be a symbol of death.

They couldn’t have a funeral for her father, his body was never recovered – and now Lisbon knew why – so they had a memorial service instead. It didn’t cost them anything, thanks to the generosity of her family’s church. Generosity that went as far as a freezer full of homemade meals, offers of driving tuition for Lisbon and a rota of men and women willing to do the grocery shop for them. She could remember it clearly like it happened just a week or two ago, when in reality a lifetime had passed.  
Round a freshly lain headstone for a newborn who hadn’t made it past a couple of weeks old, Lisbon turned around and marched back to the church without a second thought. Inside, she lowered herself to the ground long enough to cross her chest and took residence in one of the pews.

A candle flickered at the front, one she recognised as being similar to the one the priest at her hometown church lit in remembrance of her father. A gesture that was now laced with poison. All of those lovely, kind people, who gave up their time and money to make the Lisbon family’s grief that little bit easier was all in vain. Only, most of them would never know what he had done.

‘I wondered if I’d be seeing you again,’ the man she’d spoken to at the entrance stepped between her pew and the candle. ‘I’m Father Cowell.’

‘Teresa.’ Lisbon feigned a smile, one that barely lifted the edges of her lips, let alone reach her eyes.

‘If I’m not mistaken, you appear to have something on your mind.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Lisbon, letting out a long, harried sigh. The man stood before her in silence, giving her an opening she half didn’t want. ‘Someone’s recently come back into my life.’

‘Ah,’ said the priest. ‘You’re trying to decide whether to accept this person back into your world, am I right?’

‘Something like that.’ Lisbon sat up straighter and watched as Father Cowell merely waited, his gentle tone making her feel instantly calmer. ‘I’m not sure I can ever forgive him for what he did.’

Father Cowell rested a finger upon his lip, and sat down on the pew in front of Lisbon, he turned to face her, his white hair falling a little over his eyebrows, which he quickly shifted away.

‘My dear, Teresa,’ he began. ‘Forgiveness is not always easy, but it is something we must do.’

‘I’m not sure I can, Father. What he did,’ said Lisbon, the words catching in her throat. ‘He did some heinous things.’

‘It is not that we are forgiving the actions of another, dear, it’s that we are finding a way to live with them in our lives. Forgive this person, forget what they have done and you will find peace of mind where before there was chaos.’

Lisbon slouched in her seat, her shoulders hunched over with the weight of her situation. What Father Cowell said made perfect sense, in an ideal world, but the world wasn’t perfect and the situation was not easy.

‘Alas,’ he continued, reaching out and taking her hand between his own. ‘Dear girl, there are greater things in your life than the difficulties you face. Trust in God to help you through this crisis and you will be rewarded, you know what I say to be true.’

‘I do,’ she replied, nodding her head and allowing her lips to curve into something that resembled a smile. ‘Thank you for your time.’

‘I hope that it has been time well spent,’ said Father Cowell, standing up, lowering his head slightly before he walked off down the aisle, leaving Lisbon alone with her thoughts.

1988

‘Teresa!’ Greg smiled when he opened the door and found her standing on the doorstep, a forged smile in return and he allowed her into the house.

‘My dad’s home, so I thought I’d drop by.’

‘Perfect timing, my folks are out,’ said Greg, slipping an arm around her waist and moving in for a kiss. She closed her eyes and though all she could think about was the horrid scent of her father’s breath the night before, she allowed him to kiss her. The way his tongue moved across her bottom lip and explored the contours of her mouth, was something that normally made her stomach twist up with excitement. Tonight, she felt numb.

‘Can I have a glass of water?’ she asked, placing a hand on his chest until he stopped his quest to devour her lips.

‘Sure,’ he replied, leading her down the hallway towards the kitchen. He opened the fridge and took out a water purifier, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. ‘There’s beer, if you’d prefer.’

Sometimes Teresa wondered what it would be like to get blind drunk, to go home and be the one her father had to fear, for a change. Most of the time, the thought of drinking repulsed her and, as a result, she felt resentment towards Greg for not having to worry about what alcohol would do to him.

‘Water’s fine,’ she said, sitting down on a stool at the counter and resisting the urge to clench her fists.

The glass of water was cool and refreshing, a far cry from the water at home where they drank from the tap which was hardly ever anything but lukewarm. Greg perched on a second stool, a bottle of beer resting on his lip as he poured the contents slowly into his mouth.

‘What’d you get in that math test?’ asked Greg.

‘B plus,’ Teresa replied, short and sweet. Despite turning up on his doorstep, she didn’t much care for conversation.

‘Well done, I got a B minus, always knew you were smarter than me.’

‘Great.’

Once her glass was empty, Greg’s hands were round her waist and Teresa found herself trapped by his warm body and the edge of the countertop. His mouth tasted of stale beer, which made her feel a little sickly.

‘Oh Teresa,’ said Greg, moving his lips along the edge of her jawline and up round to the base of her ear. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she was in a swimming pool, the water lapping up around her ears, her body floating on the surface of the water. ‘I wanna be with you, really be with you.’

‘No.’ She snapped out of her dream-like state, the swimming pool had vanished and she had to hold onto the counter to stop herself from falling off the stool. Greg’s body no longer supported her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I thought we were good,’ he replied, stroking her cheek with his fingertips. ‘You said we could maybe do it soon.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Aww, come on Teresa, you and me, it’s gonna happen eventually.’

‘Just not today, okay?’

He took a step back across the tiled floor and nodded, his arms outstretched towards her, his goofy smile making it impossible not to smile back. She didn’t want to give him the wrong impression but she couldn’t help pretend that everything was just fine.

‘Come on,’ said Greg, dropping one of his arms to his side and reaching the other out for Teresa to take hold of. She accepted his hand and allowed him to pull her from the stool and out across the floor. She stood there, stationary, until Greg’s arm wrapped around her waist and he pulled her close. He lifted their arms to one side and began to sway. ‘Let’s dance.’

‘Dance?’ she asked, frowning at his joviality, though the distraction from the elephant in the room was something Teresa was thankful for.

‘Sure, why the hell not?’

So Teresa squeezed his hand with her own and thrust her hips that little bit closer to her boyfriend’s, as he rocked them back and forth across the kitchen. The lack of music mattered little. The romantic feeling of dancing to silence made everything seem like maybe it could be okay. Maybe love was enough to make life good enough to be okay, and maybe, just maybe, it was her way out of the world she’d been forced into.

One day, she would marry this boy, one day she would come home to their own house with their two children, a dog and a white picket fence and they would live out their days happily. Not follow in her own family’s footsteps; that would be her worst nightmare.

**2014**

When Lisbon arrived back at the motel she lay on the bed and pulled out her cell phone. She attempted Jane’s number and on hearing his voice, felt her whole body convulse in violent shakes.

‘Teresa?’ he said, repeating her name several times until she finally responded.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping at her eyes as more tears flowed down her cheeks.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Bad day.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice calm and comforting.

‘I’d rather hear about yours,’ she replied in an attempt to quell the tears that streamed down her face.

‘I went to the beach,’ he said, then stayed silent for a while. She knew he was trying to get her to talk, but she’d spent hours in interview rooms with suspects who wouldn’t talk and she wasn’t about to start breaking silences now. ‘I built a sandcastle, I ate ice cream, I helped a little boy dig a hole and then got shouted at by his dad.’

Lisbon laughed. She couldn’t help it; Jane’s vacation was anything but average for a middle-aged man vacationing alone. She half expected him to phone her up because he’d been arrested.

‘Have you done anything other than sit on the beach in your suit?’

‘Today I wore shorts,’ he said with a sense of pride in his voice that only made Lisbon laugh again. ‘Are you making fun of me in your head?’

‘Always,’ she replied.

‘What are you wearing?’ he asked, and she rolled her eyes.

‘My work clothes.’

‘Not your bra and panties?’

‘Of course I’m wearing a bra and panties,’ she said. ‘But I’m wearing my work clothes over them.’

‘Shucks,’ he said, going silent again.

‘It’s not going to work.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘You trying to get me to talk.’

‘I’m worried about you,’ he said, his voice serious for the first time.

‘My dad’s alive.’

‘How?’

‘I, I guess he, he ran away.’ The feelings she’d managed to suppress for a moment came flooding back, leaving Lisbon breathless. ‘He’s a suspect in the case.’

The phone line stayed silent and Lisbon wanted to scream for Jane to say something, to provide her with the comfort she so desperately needed. But he was hundreds of miles away and there was nothing she could do about it.

‘I wish I could be there with you,’ he said, a note of sadness in his voice. Lisbon felt sobs consume her again as she wished the same thing, her heart ached so much from the absence that she wondered if she was going to have a heart attack.

‘Me too.’

‘I’m here, baby, I’m here.’


	7. Chapter 7

**1988**

By the time Teresa was due home, she’d lost track of time. Greg’s lips were practically surgically attached and she was enjoying the freedom from her responsibilities a little too much. Teresa knew that if she didn’t take as much time for herself as possible then nobody else would give it to her and she’d reach her seventeenth birthday with little more than a high school diploma as her achievements. Not that kissing Greg was an achievement exactly, just the idea of having a boyfriend and experiencing something that her friends appeared to have experienced a couple of times over already.

‘I have to go,’ she said, placing a hand on Greg’s chest and kissing him one last time. It still made her think too much about the things she was trying to forget and the elation kissing Greg used to produce was not even present. She just needed to do something to make herself feel like life was worth living.

‘Wait, don’t,’ he replied, pulling her back in to his embrace. Teresa wrapped her arms around him and deepened the brief peck, her tongue dancing along the edge of his mouth until his forced them together.

Teresa sighed, loud enough for Greg to hear and though she knew that he was as disappointed as she was, she really had to go.

‘Stay. With me.’ Greg’s lips continued his request until Teresa found herself, fifteen minutes later, still attached to her boyfriend. She slid a hand along the fabric of his t-shirt, the soft cotton material doing little to hide the ripples of muscle underneath. Greg pulled away; he wrapped his hands around his front until he’d lifted his shirt up and over his head leaving Teresa with what was underneath. Butterflies danced in her stomach, a sense of panic hit her but she allowed him to continue.

‘Okay.’

The smile on his face reminded Teresa that she shouldn’t doubt the love he felt for her, that what they were about to do was an act of love and nothing less. She did love him, even if she couldn’t quite show him in the usual ways. He slid a hand under her shirt and tried to unbuckle her bra, the attempt became more of a mission and he eventually gave up momentarily whilst he kissed her deeper and his other hand went with the first for reinforcements.

Having her bra slip away from her body felt unusual under the circumstances, like there was no going back no matter how much Teresa might want to say no. She felt exposed, despite the fact that her t-shirt was still on. When Greg’s fingers found the gap where her bra had been moments before, she shuddered under his cold touch, and something that should have felt comfortable felt anything but.

She lay there, on Greg’s bed, her legs spread slightly whilst Greg lay between them. She could feel the bulge in his pants growing. Though she was still not ready for the moment when he finally unbuckled his pants and pushed them down. Then he slipped off his boxer shorts and there he was, exposed. Under those circumstances, Teresa should have felt more embarrassed at the sight of his naked body, not at her own vulnerability beneath him. When he pawed at her t-shirt, she wanted nothing more than to pull it down around her knees and curl up in a ball, but instead she lifted her arms above her head and allowed Greg to pull it away, her bra slipped down her arms as she lowered them.

Her skin tingled with goosebumps and a slight chill in the air. Teresa wrapped her arms around her bare breasts. She closed her eyes, feeling like she was sat in a goldfish bowl at a zoo with millions of people looking down on her when the only pair of eyes belonged to Greg.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered against her ear as he pushed and pulled at the final piece of clothing covering her. She battled with him briefly as she fought to maintain the dignity that seemed to have disappeared somewhere between the bra unclasping and the moment Greg unleashed his naked body.

‘Thanks,’ she replied, tears catching in her throat. The whole situation was extremely uncomfortable and no matter how much anyone might tell her that her first time – her first proper time – was special, she couldn’t help feeling like maybe it was all some big lie passed down through generations to persuade people to carry on the species.

When he entered her she expected it to hurt, the way it had a couple of days ago when everything went wrong and her body felt as though it was ripping in two. Now, she felt empty. She could feel him moving inside of her and yet it was as though he wasn’t even touching her at all. It lasted seconds – considerably less time than the official loss of her virginity – seconds that did little but make Teresa feel even worse than she had done up until that point. He pulled out of her and began cleaning up, whilst Teresa lay on his bed, her body exposed even more than before; it no longer mattered. The moment of embarrassment had passed; Greg had violated her in ways that he couldn’t possibly imagine. He didn’t know and she wouldn’t tell him; it wasn’t fair on him, it wasn’t his fault. She should have told him the truth, but the truth was painful and something Teresa had quickly learned after her mother’s death was to bottle up everything inside.

‘Are you okay?’ Greg asked, disposing of the condom in his waste basket. She nodded her head but didn’t move from her spot on the bed. ‘You wanna get dressed?’

She shook her head and closed her eyes. The bed moved underneath her and Greg slid his arm across her waist until his fingers were cupping her breast and the shape of his body expanded once more against her thigh.

‘You wanna go again?’ he asked, after a few minutes lying there. She didn’t know what to say, the expectation was that she was going to want to do it again. She’d read it in all of the magazines about the first time being painful and everything after became something more important, something that actually felt arousing. She was doubtful, though, he was technically her second time and it had been almost worse than the first – if you removed the person behind her first time. She didn’t push him away when he moved between her legs, slipped on another condom and violated her one final, equally quick, time. ‘I love you.’

‘Me too,’ she replied, though her voice came out as though it was someone else’s, her throat closed over with the onset of tears that prickled in the backs of her eyes. She wanted to scream out for somebody to help her, to stop him from ever touching her again, but he just lay there expecting her to want to cuddle when all she wanted was to run away and hide.

Eventually, as the world outside went quiet, Teresa slipped out of Greg’s arms and retrieved her clothes. She dressed quickly, not caring to put on her bra or her panties, just slipped them into the pocket of her jacket.

‘I have to go.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Greg said in a sleepy stupor, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her passionately. Teresa complied with his lips but an overwhelming feeling of regret and sorrow settled in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t bear to look at him, let alone kiss him. Then there was the fact he would be expecting them to do it again.

When she got out into the street, adamant that she didn’t need a ride home or someone to walk her, a couple of blocks down from Greg’s family home, she vomited on a rose bush. Her stomach emptied itself of its contents until there was nothing left and Teresa felt emptier than she had in days.

The door was unlocked when Teresa entered the house, a strong sense of foreboding passing over her as she walked down the hallway towards the kitchen. The door squeaked on its hinges, something which her father had promised to fix a year ago and never had. There he sat at the kitchen table; he looked up when she walked in the door.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked, his eyes darting across her dishevelled appearance. She ran a hand through the mess of hair on top of her head.

‘Out,’ she replied, filling a glass with water and sipping on it.

‘Where?’ he tried again, his voice abrupt with an angry undertone.

‘With friends.’

‘Liar.’

‘I was with a friend,’ she said, turning around and facing him.

‘Your friends called wanting to speak to you. You little slut,’ he snapped, standing up and walking towards her. She winced as his hand moved towards her face, but instead of the slap she expected, his fingers came up around her throat until she couldn’t breathe. ‘I can smell it. What you did. You little slut.’

‘It. Hurts.’ Teresa choked on her words, the lack of breath impossible. Eventually, he loosened his grip and shoved her so hard that she collided with the sink, her hip smashing into the handle on the drawer. Teresa bent over in pain.

‘You deserve what you have coming to you,’ Aaron said, slapping her across the head and walking out of the room.

She could have walked the few feet to her bedroom, but Teresa didn’t have much energy for anything let alone unnecessary walking. Instead, she lowered herself down onto the linoleum and curled up in a ball, resting her head against the cupboard door. There she fell asleep, as though it was the most comfortable place on Earth.

**2014**

The day turned into night and Lisbon hadn’t moved from her spot on the bed, her phone lay beside her, abandoned when she’d said goodbye to Jane. She felt empty, in much the same way she had the night her father raped her. The knock on her motel room door was unwanted, so much so that Lisbon ignored it, until someone used a key card and the door opened without her permission. The sight of Jane standing in the doorway with a bunch of flowers in his hands was enough to make her cry again. She didn't though. She pushed that painful lump back down her throat and rushed, in a way she once promised herself she never would, towards him.

'I missed you,' she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck and nussling it with her face. She breathed in the familiar scent of his skin and squeezed a little tighter than usual

'What happened?' he asked, stroking her head and kissing her softly.

'Three dead teenagers,' she replied, pulling out of his hug and accepting a brief peck on the lips.

'I know about the case,' he said, his brow furrowed. 'What's going on with you?'

'Nothing,' she said, the pitch of her voice growing ever so slightly higher.

'You know that I know that you're a bad liar.'

'I'm fine, Jane.'

She forged a smile so wide until she creased her eyes, hoping it would be enough for him to accept the genuity of her happiness. Lisbon leaned in once more, her lips brushing against Jane's until the smallest of actions deepened into something more. She revelled in the feel of his hands enveloping her and his mouth making her feel more alive than usual.

'Don't you have a case to work on?' asked Jane, handing her the bunch of flowers - Chrysanthemums.

'Abbot and Cho are handling it,' said Lisbon. 'Means we can spend a couple hours alone. Why are you even here? You have another week of vacation left.'

‘Meh,’ he said with a smile. ‘Holidays are for families, I couldn’t leave you alone when you needed me.’

One more kiss and Lisbon decided that she wasn't going to go back to the office, not that Abbot would let her even if she wanted to. Jane dropped a small bag in the doorway as soon as Lisbon had opened the door, then he closed it behind them and scooped Lisbon up into his arms. She opened her mouth and kissed him again, his hands holding her thighs as he rested her against the back of the door. His lips traced along her lower lip, expertly moving across in the most sensuous way possible. His fingers travelled up her legs towards her butt and upwards along her sides, not caring that he shifted her work shirt up and his hands trailed underneath the fabric.

The door held her in place long enough for their heart rates to increase to a speed that Lisbon was sure equalled each other. When he finally lowered her onto the bed she flipped over and straddled him. She rested her ear against his chest and the beat of his heart was in rhythm with her own. She slipped off her shirt without unbuttoning before carefully unfastening the buttons on his waistcoat and shirt, pushing the fabric away from his skin until they lay on top of it.

'I love you,' said Jane, resting his fingers into the edges of her pants, one hand attempting to push them down whilst his other fumbled with the zip. Lisbon took over and released her pants from their fastening and he moved them down her legs until she could kick them off. Then they followed with his pants which landed on top of her’s on the floor.

The idea of replying to Jane in that moment mattered little, as a gentle moan escaped her lips and she captured his mouth once more. He flipped her over and trailed kisses along her collarbone, down between her breasts and across her stomach. She didn't much care for his gentle acts, though she usually allowed him a little. Eventually, he set the wheels in motion and she lay beneath him, that same emptiness she felt as a teenager filling the void that she knew should have been something more than it was.

Afterwards, he lay on the bed with her in the crook of his arm, their bodies entangled like that of any couple in love, any couple who had just made love. She wanted to feel the things she usually felt, she desperately wanted to feel like Jane had just shown her how much he cared.

'Me too,' she replied, not through necessity but because now that they'd gotten the sex over with, she could put her mental capacity back into the feelings she actually harboured for him. He kissed her head and held her carefully in his arms, something which made Lisbon feel safe.

‘You never say I love you,’ Jane whispered.

‘I just did.’

‘No, you said “me too”.’

‘You know how I feel,’ said Lisbon, turning over in the bed and climbing out.

‘I do, but you don’t say it,’ said Jane, wrapping a sheet around his waist and sitting up.

‘Why are you bringing this up now?’

Jane shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s as good a time as any.’

‘I’ve had a long, horrible day, don’t ruin a nice moment,’ she said, slipping into her clothes.

'I don’t want to ruin anything, Teresa, but you were crying down the phone a few hours ago. Are we going to talk about what happened or are you going to bury your head in the sand like you are about saying “I love you”?'

'I’m not burying my head in the sand…and there's nothing to say,' said Lisbon, sitting back down on the corner of the bed and turning on the television.

Jane just stared at her until she couldn't help but turn to look at him. That expression he usually carried when someone was lying to him rested on his features and Lisbon let out a gentle sigh. She didn't talk about her past, in much the same way that Jane didn't talk about his. He understood that, or so she had thought.

'Teresa,' he began, softness in his voice that he usually only reserved for her. 'You think I don't know what you've been through.'

'You don't know, Jane,' she replied, dropping the remote on the bed and walking across the room.

'Patrick.'

'What?'

'We've been together for six months, when will you start calling me Patrick?'

'I call you Patrick,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘Why are you picking up on what I do or don’t say? What does any of this matter?'

'Now you're trying to detract from the conversation.'

'You’re the one that brought up this silly argument about what I call you and how I feel.'

'Teresa,' he said again, climbing off the bed and walking towards her side of the room. She could feel tears threatening to invade her eyes, which she held back for as long as feesibly possible. The way Jane looked at her; she could tell that he knew more than she had ever told him. 'You told me once that he nearly killed you, I know you had a difficult childhood.'

'So did most people,' she replied, in an attempt to trivialise something that she knew deserved no triviliasation.

'He hurt you in more ways than you've talked about, didn't he?'

'That's none of your business,' she snapped, her eyes glossing over. 'When will people stop trying to understand my past?'

'You made it my business when you agreed to be my girlfriend.’

‘That doesn’t give you the keys to my soul.’

‘It gives me the keys to your heart,’ he said, sighing. ‘I want to protect you but you won’t let me.’

‘You’re as bad as Abbot, it’s my past and I will choose who and when I tell about it.’

‘So it's relevant to the case,' Jane muttered, though not quiet enough that Lisbon couldn't hear him.

'I'm going for a walk,' she said, stepping towards the door and pulling it open.

'Wait, Teresa,' said Jane, stepping closer and reaching a hand out to her arm. She allowed him to wrap his fingers around her wrist and pull her back, abandoning the door. Tears had begun to stroll down her cheeks now and there was nothing she could do to stop them. She was always at her weakest when she was with Jane, no matter how hard she tried, ever since they'd become more than just friends and colleagues, she'd become more honest than she ever expected to be. Besides, he wasn’t asking because he wanted to know, he was asking because he needed to know. For her.

'He raped me when I was sixteen,' she blurted out, taking the moment of surprise to release her arm and rush out of the motel room door.

In the parking lot, Jane caught up to her wearing only his pants. She found a spot in the dark, the furthest from the motel as she could get, where she stood staring up at the stars in the sky.

'That's why you didn’t enjoy sex just then,' he said, carrying on the conversation as though they hadn't relocated.

She pulled her gaze from the sky and settled it upon Jane's face, and though it was partially in shadow, she stared at him anyway. He tried to smile briefly, a sympathetic sort of smirk that Lisbon hadn't wanted. One of the reasons she'd never told anyone before - except Abbot - was because of that look on his face. He felt sorry for her and she wanted anything but that to happen. It was more than that, though, it was an expectation that her whole world had been changed by that single moment in her past. He was right; of course, she couldn't even enjoy a moment of passion with her boyfriend because seeing her father again brought back too many difficult memories.

'How do you know?' she asked, defensively.

'I watched you,' he said. 'I like to see when you feel everything that I feel and, you didn’t. Usually you do.'

'You don't have a clue what I feel,' she snapped, turning away. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and rubbed the fabric of her thin shirt. Jane wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, something which she resisted at first, until the warmth of another human body was enough to make her feel that little bit better. 'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry for getting angry or for not enjoying sex?'

'Both,' she said. 'I wanted to feel it, I just couldn’t. It took me nearly ten years to get over that, seeing him brought it all back.'

'I'm sorry,' he replied.

'Why are you sorry?'

'For pushing, for prying into the things that you haven't told me. I know how hard it is.'

'Yeah.'

'Come back inside,' he said, rubbing her arms and kissing her neck. 'Maybe we could try and change that.'

'It's not going to work, Jane.'

'Patrick.'

She turned in his arms and stared up into his eyes, the stars reflected in his pupils. She rested a hand upon his cheek and placed a brief kiss on his lips.

'Patrick,' she repeated. 'I need time. It’ll come back.'

'Anything you need. Come inside anyway,' he said, holding her in his arms. She rested her chin on his shoulder and closed her eyes, cherishing the moment of pleasure. Then she kissed him, an act which she still associated with a relationship more than any other.

'Only if we can make out like teenagers,' she said, stroking a hand down his cheek.

'If that will make you happy.' She nodded. 'Then so shall it be.'


	8. Chapter 8

**1988**

When Teresa woke up on the kitchen floor, she was relieved to discover her father was not there. She showered, prepared breakfast and got her brothers up and out of the house ready for school. She continued the day as she always did, put a forged smile on her face and pretended that everything was fine. When she arrived home to find her father was still not there, she embraced the peace and quiet. She helped Tommy with his reading, made Joseph do his homework and spent time with James as they made the dinner. She almost felt relaxed for the first time in a long while. Her hip hurt from where she bashed into the counter and she knew that her father could walk in at any moment, but it didn’t matter. Something had shifted and she felt like she didn’t need to worry.

By Sunday evening her father still hadn’t appeared which left her feeling both worried and glad. Her brothers hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong and when they asked where he was, she fobbed them off with made up excuses that came naturally to her. After putting Joseph to bed the phone rang and she felt some comfort in hearing Greg’s voice.

‘Is everything okay?’ he asked and she nearly told him.

‘Everything’s okay,’ she said, hoping she’d done enough to relay his worries. ‘You can come over if you want.’

‘Are you sure? I don’t want to make things difficult with your dad.’

‘It’s fine. Just don’t tell Samantha and Lin that I let you, or they’ll want to turn it into some kind of party.’

‘They were asking after you,’ said Greg. ‘I haven’t seen you guys together.’

‘You know how it is,’ she said. ‘I’ve always got to pick my brothers up from school.’

It didn’t take him long to arrive and by that time her brothers were all in their bedrooms. She curled up with Greg on the couch, their lips practically attached as they shared a moment of intimacy. They watched a movie and fell asleep in each other’s arms. When Greg woke Teresa at one in the morning she felt a surge of panic, she searched the room for her father, but he wasn’t there.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, furrowing her brow.

‘What’s wrong?’ he repeated. ‘I’ve missed my curfew, why didn’t your dad wake us? Isn’t he home?’

‘No,’ she said, listening carefully for any sound of him in the house. ‘He goes away sometimes.’

‘Goes away?’ Greg looked sceptical and Teresa could only maintain a modicum of honesty on her face. ‘Where is he, Teresa?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I don’t know where he is,’ she said, turning away from him. ‘He wasn’t here when I woke up on Friday and I’ve not seen him since.’

‘You need to phone the police,’ said Greg, resting a hand on her cheek, forcing Teresa to turn to face him. She trained her eyes on the couch and Greg’s hand caressed her face.

‘Maybe, tomorrow,’ she replied, resting her head on his chest until he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace.

He stayed the night and in the morning, after they took her brothers to school, they walked to the police station to report her father missing.

‘There must be something you can do,’ Greg said, raising his voice at the police officer.

‘I’m sorry kid, just gotta see if he comes back. If he’s still missing in a few days, let us know and we’ll see what we can do. You should get to school, don’t want you caught truanting.’

**2014**

‘You’re letting him go?’ Lisbon stood in the entrance of the sheriff’s office, staring at Abbot, her eyes wide with anger and frustration.

‘I already have,’ he replied, her tone of voice barely registering. ‘You need to let this go, Teresa.’

She couldn’t let it go, what happened with her father was too raw for her to consider doing so. She thought he was dead, and then he was there, the main suspect in a serious case. The situation was too untenable to consider letting it go.

‘But he raped and murdered those girls.’

‘Evidence says otherwise,’ said Abbot, leading Lisbon towards the door. ‘We’ve established that your father comforted the third girl right before she disappeared, there’s someone at the diner who can corroborate that. We also have your father’s and their statement suggesting another diner employee could be responsible. Cho and Fischer are picking him up as we speak.’

‘He’s lying, he’s got to be,’ she said.

‘We’re still waiting on a comparison of DNA but I expect there won’t be a match.’

Deep down she knew her reasoning was misplaced and that her father was, as Abbot suggested, likely innocent. But everything he’d put her through, she just couldn’t process things quickly enough.

‘If he’s not here then where is he?’

‘He’s gone home, as far as I know.’

‘And where’s that?’ asked Lisbon.

‘I can’t tell you that Teresa, you’re no longer assigned to this case. You have no right to that information.’

‘He’s my father.’

‘That being so, I cannot give you his details because he asked that I don’t.’

She counted to ten before leaving the sheriff’s office. The very idea that her father had decided she should not be given basic information about his whereabouts was absurd. He’d feigned death, hidden away in a small town in Texas for over twenty years, and he was keeping hold of all of the cards. The thought of his actions then, and his actions now, caused a bubbling rage to form in the pit of her stomach.

Before she knew what she was doing, Lisbon was standing in the little church she’d been to a couple of days before. Father Cowell was nowhere to be seen. She knelt briefly, crossed her chest and slipped into a pew where she closed her eyes and prayed silently. The solitude allowed her racing heart to slow to its regular beat, the frustration and anger slowly dissipating until she felt able to withstand the stress of her current situation.

‘Why did you have to come back?’ she asked; the words were meant for her father but rolled out through the church building.

Lisbon moved to the aisle and took long, slow strides down the centre of the church. She stopped beside a row of candles, picked up a box of matches and lit one of the candles. It flickered in the dullness and she said another prayer; for her mother, for the father she thought she’d grieved for, and for the life she could have had had she known he was still alive.

On the way out of the church Lisbon found Jane standing by the entrance to the graveyard; his blonde curls glistened under the midday sun, his three piece suit carefully fastened as it usually was. There she found solace in his arms, his fingers tracing along her back until he’d pulled her tightly into an embrace.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked, pushing her face into his shoulder.

‘It was either here or the sheriff’s office,’ he replied.

‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ she said, forcing the tears to stay buried deep inside. She pulled out of his arms and lightly brushed his lips with her own. ‘I need you.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

1988

‘I told you, you didn’t need to,’ said Teresa, unlocking the front door, wiping her shoes on the mat and kicking off her shoes. Her brothers and Greg followed suit. ‘I’m fine.’

‘I don’t think you are,’ Greg replied, dropping his school bag on the floor beside the couch and sitting down.

‘Hey Greg, wanna play some video games with me and James?’ asked Tommy.

‘He doesn’t want to play video games and you shouldn’t either,’ said Lisbon. ‘Go do your homework.’

‘Bitch.’ Tommy took a couple of footsteps towards the hallway when Teresa stepped in front of him.

‘What did you say?

‘Bitch,’ he said, louder, staring her directly in the eyes.

‘You think you’re so clever using big, bad words, well you’re not Thomas. Grow up.’

‘Whatever,’ he replied, shoving her shoulder as he walked past her towards the hallway. Teresa let him go and trawled back to the couch where she slouched down into the comfortable cushions, Greg’s arms snaked around her shoulder.

‘You’re good with them,’ said Greg, smiling.

‘Someone’s gotta make them do their homework.’

‘You’re real special, you know that, right?’

She lowered her head, her cheeks warm with a hue of red. In the years after her mother’s death, she hadn’t had much time for boyfriends, and the way Greg made her feel had come almost out of the blue.

‘Come here,’ said Greg, leaning in and capturing her lips with his own, quick consecutive kisses which deepened into a passionate embrace. Teresa allowed his hands to travel down her sides, his fingers toying with the idea of increasing the small band of skin between her shirt and her trousers.

‘Greg,’ said Teresa, pushing him back briefly.

‘It’s okay, I’ve got a condom,’ he replied, slipping a small square packet out of his jeans.

‘That’s not it,’ she snapped, pushing him further back until he took the hint. ‘My brothers are in the next room, they could come in here at any moment.’

‘I thought we’d go to your room first,’ he said, his lips tracing along her jawline and down her neck.

‘I’m not going to have sex with you with my brothers in the house.’ Teresa pushed him again, her eyes bearing down with anger and frustration.

‘Fine,’ he grumbled, sitting back against the couch.

‘Don’t be like that,’ said Teresa.

‘Like what?’

‘In a mood with me.’

‘I’m not in a mood; I thought we were getting serious about each other.’

‘We are, but I don’t want us to just do it anytime anywhere. I have responsibilities. My dad hasn’t been home in days, I can’t leave the boys to go off and have sex with my boyfriend. Joey’s probably going to need help with his homework and if I don’t bug Tommy until he’s finished his, he won’t do it.’

‘I know, I’m sorry.’


	9. Chapter 9

**2014**

The last few nights rolled into one, the moments lay in bed staring up at the ceiling wondering when sleep would come stretched out across the days leaving Lisbon crabby and frustrated. Even in Jane’s arms, she couldn’t find a way past the thoughts that consumed her consciousness. She wriggled and shifted about under the covers constantly, until even her own restlessness grew tiresome.

‘Do you want to go for a walk?’

Lisbon stopped moving and glanced down at Jane, his face pushed into the pillow, his question muffled. She sunk back into the bed beside him and rested a hand on his head.

‘I’m sorry, did I wake you?’

‘It’s okay,’ he said, lifting himself up until he was resting on his elbow. Lisbon smiled at him, a small sleepy smile that made her feel drunk with the feelings Jane brought up whenever he was by her side. Whenever he was naked and sharing her bed.

‘I can’t stop thinking,’ she said, resting a hand on his shoulder and letting it slip down his upper torso. The moon shone through a gap in the curtains, illuminating Jane’s hair until it appeared almost white. She lifted her hand up to his white curls and twisted them around her fingers. Maybe if she kissed him, if she got lost in his lips, in his comforting embrace, then maybe she could forget everything that she couldn’t put down.

‘Is this about your dad?’

‘Isn’t it always?’ she asked, rolling her eyes. She was tired of thinking, tired of being forced to think, about him.

‘Maybe you should go and see him,’ said Jane. ‘There’s a lot to go over.’

‘I was going to, but Abbot wouldn’t tell me where he lives; I’ll try again tomorrow,’ said Lisbon, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to think about it anymore.

‘I sometimes find a walk helps,’ Jane said, taking her cue and cupping her face with his hand. Lisbon rested her head against his fingers.

‘You’re all that I need.’

Their lips pressed together briefly, then again, until they were so consumed in each other’s mouths that Lisbon couldn’t catch a breath. She rested her hand back down on Jane’s shoulder and pushed him onto his back, slipping her other hand onto his other shoulder before moving one leg over his torso and straddling him. She traced her lips down the side of his face, along his earlobe and onto his shoulder blade where they travelled down his torso to the centre of his chest.

‘If I knew sex would help, I’d have kissed you years ago,’ said Jane, pulling her mouth back up to his lips and kissing her softly, then deeper, until Lisbon pressed her body up against him, shifting the sheet that separated their naked forms and relishing in the moment of intimacy.

**1988**

Greg spent a lot of time at Teresa’s house in the days after their visit to the police station. She’d moved past the fear that her father would catch them, question Greg’s intentions and accuse Teresa of all of the things she’d done. She enjoyed having someone beside her, someone to lighten the load when Tommy played up or Joseph needed help with his homework. James was becoming more and more withdrawn and she didn’t know how to pull him away from the video games he spent hours playing in his room.

‘When will you let me share your bed?’ asked Greg, sitting on the couch with a glass of cola and placing a bowl of popcorn between them. Teresa’s brothers were in their rooms, whether they were asleep or not didn’t matter. She’d allowed Greg to stay again, the company far better than the silence she hated when she was alone. The movie she put on was more an attempt to ignore reality than a source of entertainment.

‘You still want to have sex with my brothers in the next room?’

He looked at her, really looked into her eyes like she wasn’t making any sense. He had an insatiable appetite, ever since they’d slept together, and she didn’t know how to get him to stop. The word ‘no’ didn’t quite form on her lips whenever he attempted to kiss her, and when he tried for more, she merely distracted herself with something else.

‘Don’t make it sound so perverted,’ he said, dipping his hand into the popcorn and scooping a handful into his mouth.

‘It is,’ she said, frowning. ‘Joseph doesn’t sleep well; he comes in my room sometimes. I don’t want him to see that.’

‘But I love you,’ said Greg, reaching over and kissing her on the corner of her mouth. ‘I want to show you how much.’

She closed her eyes and allowed his lips to move across her own until he was kissing her. She felt safe in a way she’d not felt since her mother died, like Greg represented homeliness and comfort.

‘Me too,’ said Teresa, letting her voice trail off into silence before he kissed her again. His hands began to wander and she let out a guttural moan of discontent. ‘I can’t.’

‘What now?’ asked Greg. ‘It was just a kiss.’

‘I, I know,’ said Teresa, glancing away. The innocence of making out on the couch was lost to her, the innocence of anything had disappeared the night her father raped her. She sat back against the couch and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m Catholic.’

‘So?’

‘So, I’ve already committed sin. It’s wrong.’

‘Kissing me is wrong?’

‘Not kissing,’ said Teresa. ‘The expectation of something more.’

Greg sat back on his side of the couch and Teresa listened to his own frustrated groan. He was disappointed, she’d disappointed him. He was a lovely, caring person who had been pulled into a situation he had no idea about. It wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t pushing her to sleep with him, he just didn’t seem to understand that their first night together was not the opening of a flood gate.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, sinking lower on the couch.

‘No,’ Greg said, placing the popcorn on the table beside them and edging closer. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push you.’

‘I just can’t do it again until I’m married,’ she said, allowing his lips to hover across her forehead, his arm pulling her against him until she felt his comforting embrace.

‘Then marry me,’ he whispered against her ear. Teresa opened her eyes to find Greg’s staring at her; she feigned a smile and tried to pretend that what he’d said hadn’t shocked her. She furrowed her brows and closed her eyes again, leaning her forehead against his as silence fell between them.

He didn’t push for an answer and she didn’t feel the pressure to give him one. The movie started and they lay tangled up in each other’s arms as they watched. She hated the old black and white movies, but her mind was far from conscious of the story playing out in front of her. Her whole life had been turned upside down over and over again until she was left with this; her seventeen year old boyfriend asking her to marry him when her dad was missing.

If her father was never coming back, she didn’t know what would become of her family. Greg had been nothing but supportive since she told him that her father had gone missing, he was the reason she managed to sleep at night and for that, she owed him a lot.

‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’

A loud knock at the door was a welcomed distraction from Teresa’s decision. She got up and walked towards the door, unlatched it and pulled it open. She could feel Greg standing behind her but everything began to blur at the edges. Two police officers stood on the doorstep, their eyes carrying that solemn expression she saw in the eyes of the men who carried news of her mother’s death. In that moment, her whole world crashed suddenly around her ears and though they hadn’t even told her what was going on, she just knew that something had happened.

‘Miss Lisbon?’

She nodded.

‘Can we come in? We have some, some bad news.’

‘I, I guess,’ she replied, turning to Greg, attempting to show him just how serious the situation was with her eyes.

The men followed them into the living room, where Greg and Teresa settled back on the couch.

‘I’m very sorry but we think that your father has been killed in a car accident.’

‘You think?’ she asked, frowning.

‘Witnesses saw his car go over the bridge, up by the highway. The current up round that side of the river, we suspect that he must have drowned.’

‘Drowned?’

‘We recovered his car, there was an empty whisky bottle caught under the seat.’

‘He killed himself?’

‘We don’t know if he intended to do what he did, but, it’s likely that he won’t be coming back.’

‘He’s gone?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

Teresa sat frozen to the spot, her shoulders shaking for no apparent reason and her eyes stinging with the threat of tears. The police officers let themselves out, and before she could say anything, Greg had wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She tried to focus, to understand what had just happened, but everything was a blur. The world around her felt surreal and there was nothing she could do but feel the overwhelming feelings that threatened to consume her.

‘You okay?’ asked Greg, his question severely misguided. Teresa shook her head and allowed him to hold her. Everything wasn’t okay, it would never be okay. She was left to take care of her younger brothers, they were officially orphans. Not least, she didn’t know how she was going to explain to her brothers that their father wasn’t coming back. How were they supposed to pay for a funeral? As far as she knew, they had no money. Her father hadn’t worked in months, a year even, and she didn’t expect he had much savings. How was she supposed to support her brothers?  
The whole situation was one big mess; the last thing she ever wanted was to lose her father. On the other hand, she felt an overwhelming feeling of relief. The hand that often hit her and her brothers was no longer there, she was free from one set of shackles…only to be forced to wear another.

‘Reese?’ Joey stood at the other end of the couch, his eyes filled with tears and his cuddly bunny rabbit, Tracy, in his arms. ‘When’s Daddy coming home?’

She didn’t know what to say, how do you explain to a nine year old that his father isn’t coming back? That his birthday will probably be forgotten, for the second year in a row, because his father chose that week to either purposefully or accidentally kill himself.


	10. part 1

**2014**

The house was a standard house on a fairly average street, a garage attached at one side and cars in the driveway. It was not unlike the home she'd shared with her family back in Chicago, which made it all the harder to step up to the front door and wait for someone to answer it.

'Teresa,' her father said by way of greeting, his eyes wide open as he stared at her.

'Not expecting company?' she asked, standing on the doorstep with a hand on her hip. She knew Abbot wouldn’t give her the address, so she asked at the diner instead. 'Aren't you going to invite me in?'

Aaron stared at his daughter, glanced inside the house, then back out to Lisbon. The sound of general chatter and conversation sneaked out through the gap in the door, followed by music. Lisbon didn't move from the doorstep, just stared into the eyes of the man who was supposed to be her father, and watched as he lied to her.

'Now's not a good time, I have some friends over.'

'Friends?' she asked, her brow furrowing. 'They're the only other people in the house?'

'Course, who else would there be?' he replied, shrugging his shoulders, the epitome of nonchalance.

'Who is it Aaron?' a woman asked from the other side of the door and he was forced to pull it aside a little further so that the woman could see who their guest was. Lisbon smiled genially, her eyes darting to the arm that snaked around her father's waist, a ring on her left finger. 'You’re a cop, haven’t you people terrorised my husband enough?'

'Yes,' said Lisbon, glancing at Aaron, by way of the small crowd of people hanging around in the house. 'I’m with the FBI. I see you're having some sort of celebration.'

'This is my wife, Debbie,' Aaron said, kissing her on the cheek.

'It's a family gathering,' said Debbie, with a broad smile. 'We like to get the children and grandchildren over every once in a while.'

'Children,' repeated Lisbon, staring deep into Aaron's eyes. 'And grandchildren. Lucky.'

'This really isn't a good time,' said Aaron.

'I thought you'd found the murderer,' his wife added. 'What do you need Aaron for now?'

Lisbon attempted to force a smile but the blatant lies and the lack of introduction was enough to make Lisbon's temple pulse. She didn’t really want to be part of her father’s new family, but that was barely the point. She clenched her fist and stared behind the happy couple, to a number of people, small children included.

'Actually, it was a personal matter,' said Lisbon, raising an eyebrow at Aaron. He shook his head briefly but Lisbon ignored him. 'It looks like you're missing quite a few family members.'

The frown on Debbie's face made Lisbon feel a sense of achievement, her actions were abhorrent under most circumstances but she couldn't help but feel that she was doing the right thing. Deep down she knew that it was misplaced anger, that it wasn't the woman's fault - or her children - that she'd married a lying man.

'Everyone's here,' she finally said. 'Would you like to come inside?'

She accepted Debbie's invitation and followed her through the house, closely followed by her father, who appeared agitated. Being there with his new family made it all the more enjoyable.

'You're definitely missing a few,' she said, loudly enough for the crowd of people to quieten down, her words directed at Aaron. 'There's James, Tommy and Joseph, not to forget their families. Any reason they're not invited to the family reunion, Dad?'

The room went dead, except for a couple of children playing a noisy game. Each person stared directly at Lisbon and in that moment she felt considerably more exposed than she'd expected to be. As she glanced around at the strangers in the room, the confused looks and tears in Debbie's eyes, Lisbon felt guilty for choosing such a public place to approach her father.

'Dad?' a man asked, stepping up beside Lisbon. If she hadn't known any better, she would have sworn it was one of her younger brothers. 'Who is this woman?'

'Can't see the family resemblance?' she asked, looking into his eyes until his eyebrows creased in the middle.

'This can't be true,' said Debbie, wiping at her tearstained cheeks. 'You have another family?'

'Three boys, and a girl, isn't that right?' Lisbon asked again.

A woman, not much younger than the man who resembled Lisbon's brothers, approached them. Her hair was much lighter and her nose was more like her mother's, but the resemblance was uncanny.

'What is going on?' she asked, staring around at her family.

'I should probably introduce myself,' said Lisbon, holding a hand out to the woman. 'I'm Teresa, I'm Aaron's first born.'

'So we're the other family?' asked Debbie, her face now bright red with a mixture of tears and anger. Aaron stood silently staring at the floor between them, shaking his head.

'Why don't you tell them what happened, Dad?' Lisbon goaded. 'Or perhaps you'd rather I tell them everything?'

He stayed silent, still shaking his head back and forth. The rest of the family members were watching them, with the exception of two brown haired children, no older than four, who looked like her brother Joseph as a child. Lisbon shook her head too and placed a hand on her forehead, the situation was too bizarre.

'Fine,' said Lisbon, standing beside her taller siblings. 'Since our father appears to have become shy all of a sudden, I'll tell you. For the last twenty five years me and my brothers thought that our father died, drove his car off a bridge, whether it was drink driving or just an accident, I don't know. All I do know is that my little brother Joseph was nine. Our mother died a few years earlier, so this man left me, at sixteen, to look after three young boys.'

Aaron finally raised his head, his cheeks bright red and the vein in his neck more profound than Lisbon had seen it in a long time. She watched him snap, the moment where he flipped a switch from being calm and collected to becoming threatening. He stood over her, his fingers grasping tightly at her wrist as he tried to lead her towards the door.

'It's time that you left,' he said, his words quiet and manipulative.

'What's the matter, Daddy?' she asked, forcing their connected hands up into the air. 'Gonna hit me? Gonna hit me like you did when I was a kid?'

His grip tightened on Lisbon's wrist, his eyes wide as his temple pulsed considerably. In that moment, Lisbon was fifteen years old again faced with punishment for doing something so small that it barely mattered to the average person.

Then she snapped out of it, snatched her hand away from her father and smacked him in the face with her clenched fist. She could feel the bones crush under her knuckles, whether they were her own or her father's she didn't know, but the impulse quickly subsided.

'You think you can throw me out?' Lisbon stared at him, her eyes pricked with tears. 'You think you can pretend that I'm not your daughter? That none of this ever happened?'

Aaron pushed her out of the front door, quickly followed by his wife and children. The pain in her knuckle grew over the course of the next few minutes, despite the fact that Lisbon could feel adrenaline still pumping around her body.

'We thought you were dead,' she said, hitting him on the chest, her fist thumping hard against his checked shirt. 'You left us when we needed you the most.'

'I'm sorry,' he replied, his voice small and useless. Lisbon just shook her head and struggled to contain the tears now streaming down her face.

'I was sixteen years old and you left me to bring up your children on my own, like I hadn't done that enough after Mom died. I sacrificed my childhood because of you. I didn't get to go to the movies, or to parties, I didn't get to play the clarinet in high school because you took that all away from me. If it wasn't for you, Tommy wouldn't have nearly ended up in juvie over and over again, Joe wouldn't have had to wait until he was an adult to get a retainer and James wouldn't have had to go to counselling because he nearly hit his wife. You want to say you're sorry? You're not sorry, you're a coward, a fucking coward and I hate you. I hate you for what you did to us.'

The words fell from her mouth at supersonic speed, so fast that she wasn't sure the spectators were listening, but it didn't matter anymore. Everything she'd wanted to say to her dad, dead or alive, had came tumbling out of her mouth and she couldn't take them back. She just crumbled onto the floor, the dry, dusty yard covering her in sand. She sat there, pawing at her eyes, attempting to pull herself together.

'Teresa,' said Aaron, but it was too little too late. He turned instead to his other family. 'Mark, Lizzie...Debs.'

They all stared at him, shaking their heads, before one by one walking back into the house and closing the door behind them.

He moved across the yard towards Lisbon, towering over her. 'Don't touch me,' she said, before his hand could reach her shoulder. 'Don't you dare touch me or I’ll have you in cuffs.'

'Teresa, Reese,' he replied, taking a step forward. 'I need to explain.'

‘I said don’t fucking move,’ said Lisbon, pulling out her gun and resting a finger over the trigger.

'Just, just calm down Reese, I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to explain.’

‘Explain what?' she asked, shaking her head. 'There's nothing to explain, Aaron. You ruined my life.'

'You look like you're doing alright to me.'

'No thanks to you. You think that because I dress well and I have a good job that I'm okay?’ she said, waving the gun around in front of her. ‘I'm so far from okay. But you wouldn't know, you wouldn't have a clue what I've been through.'

'Please.'

'Please? Please what?'

'Don't do anything stupid.'

'What? Like getting so drunk that I rape my child?'

'What?'

'You heard me.'

'I,'

'There's nothing you can ever say that will make up for what happened. I was glad when you died; I just wish you'd stayed dead.'

'Reese, please. Just put the gun down.'

'Stop saying my name, stop talking, you have no right to talk to me.'

'No, I don't.'

'I said stop talking.'

He took another step towards her, his hand out in front of him as though he wanted to place it on her shoulder. She didn't want that though, she didn't want anything to do with him. But he kept on moving forwards. Her hands shook, the gun shook and she could feel herself wavering. She didn’t want to shoot him, but she couldn’t stand to have him so close.

'I told you not to move,' she snapped, but he took another step forward. She lowered the gun long enough to grab hold of his wrists, twist them behind his back and cuff him. 'Aaron Lisbon, Smith, whatever you call yourself now, you are under arrest for the sexual assault of a minor.'

'This is stupid, Tessie, please.'

'You're coming with me,' she replied, pushing him towards the car.


	11. part 2

**2014**

A police siren grew louder, flashing blue lights appeared from around the corner and a car pulled up on the side of the road. Lisbon held Aaron’s wrists, cuffed, behind his back but didn’t move. The gun in her hand felt like a block of lead.

‘What is going on here?’ asked Abbot, stepping out of the car.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I got a call, Teresa, I don’t know what you’re trying to do but this isn’t helping anyone.’

‘It’s helping me,’ she said, through gritted teeth. He stared at her with those sympathetic eyes that he was so good at. She wanted to argue back, to tell him that she was well within her rights to arrest her father. But she knew that what she was doing was wrong. Using her gun to terrorise her father was a step too far.

‘I think Aaron will agree with me here,’ said Abbot, reaching out to him. ‘Nobody will seek charges for the assault or for your threatening him with a weapon if you take a step back and hand me the gun.’

‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered, letting go of her father’s hands, the gun shaking in her clenched fist.

Abbot made Aaron sit down on the front step of the house before he took another step towards Lisbon.

‘Give me the gun, Teresa, I don’t want you doing anything that could ruin your career. You’re too good to let your past do that to you.’

She nodded her head, loosening her grip on the weapon before dropping it carefully on the ground. She lowered herself onto the grass and closed her eyes. Abbot rested a hand on her shoulder.

‘Teresa,’ he whispered. ‘You need to go home and take some time; you and Jane should take a vacation. A long one.’

She nodded again. After everything she’d been through over the last few days, she’d lost sight of everything. She could barely see the mistakes that she’d just made. But she couldn’t leave without clearing the air, without having the conversations she wished she could have had years ago.

‘Let’s go,’ said Abbot, wrapping his hands around her shoulders.

‘No,’ she said, pushing him away. ‘I need to, we’re not finished.’

‘I think we are.’

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I won’t, I won’t do anything stupid.’

‘Five minutes,’ said Abbot. ‘I’ll be in the car.’

The man sitting in front of her, a handkercheif to his bloody nose, looked old. He was old. Something which Lisbon had forgotten in the middle of her fit of anger was that her father was not the young man he was when he left her and her brothers. Despite all of the anger and pain that he put them through, despite the lies and deceit he had put his new family through, he was still an aging man who looked beyond his real age.

'I really am sorry,' he said, looking up at her from the frontstep. Lisbon stood over him, trying to maintain a sense of calm.

'I'm sorry I punched you,' she replied.

'I deserved it.'

‘I shouldn’t have pulled my gun.’

‘Wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d shot me.’

Lisbon let out a sigh, as though every feeling she'd held inside since her father was presumed dead was exiting her body with the carbon dioxide. A huge weight, significantly heavier than Lisbon remembered, became feather light and for the first time in her adult life, she didn't hurt as much.

'I can't forgive you, Dad,' she said, sitting down on the step beside him. 'Aaron.'

'I don't expect you to,' he replied, turning to face her.

She turned to face him, too, and there she saw the man he once was. The man who raised her all those years ago - a lifetime ago. He was the man who held onto her bicycle even after she'd learned to ride on her own, all because she was too afraid that she wouldn't be able to do it for long enough. He was the man who kissed her grazed knees, washed them and placed comic book plasters over the wounds. He was the father who read to her every night that he wasn't working, who called her his princess even when she showed more interest in football, and took her to football games all because she asked him to.

But he was also the man who drank so much that he blindly swung at her on the night before her thirteenth birthday, just a few weeks after her mom died. He was the man who beat her brother half to death, who nearly killed them all in a car accident, and raped her in his marital bed. He was the man who brought her into the world and the man who damn near dragged her out of it. He was the father who pretended, for too many years, that he was dead and she still didn't quite understand why.

'I need to know,' said Lisbon, staring into his eyes. 'I deserve to know.'

'I couldn't do it, Reese,' he replied, lowering his head and turning away. He picked at the grass, his eyes following the every move of his hands. 'Losing your mom was the hardest thing I have ever had to go through.'

'That's no excuse,' said Lisbon, anger rising up in her voice for the briefest moment until she pushed it back down.

'No,' he agreed. 'Nothing excuses any of the things that I did to you, to your brothers. When Ruth died, I just couldn't go on living. I was so consumed by my grief that I would have given anything for just one day away from that feeling. That's why I drank. To forget.'

'To forget, Mom?'

'To forget that I lost her,' he looked up at Lisbon once more. 'To forget that the person I loved most in the world died because of me.'

'It was an accident, a drunk driver, that's why she died.'

'No,' he said, choking back the tears. 'She died because I got mad that she had to work nights again, she died because I let her go out of the house angry and she, she never came back.'

'That's not your fault.'

'It is, Reese. It always will be. I've come to terms with that now, but then, back then I couldn't handle it. I couldn't cope with looking after you and Tommy and James and Joseph, because being with you, it made me remembered what I had done. I took your mom away from you and for what? An argument over her work hours? It's not worth it, Reese, fighting over the little things is just not worth it.'

'So you faked your own death and left us to fend for ourselves? That's not good enough. That's not an excuse for what you did.'

'I know,' he said, closing his eyes and opening them again. 'I know that I let you down, I let you all down. I didn't mean to do it, I pulled up on the bridge because I was drunk and feeling like life wasn't worth living. I got out of the car because I wanted to kill myself, Teresa, I was going to kill myself.'

'What stopped you?'

'I didn't put the hand break on; the car smashed through the barrier and went off the bridge. I just ran, I ran away and I didn't look back.'

'You could have come home.'

'I could have, but I didn't. I ran because I knew that if I stayed I probably wouldn't change my ways, I probably would have killed one of you and I couldn't do that.'

'Tommy never got over what you did to him.'

'What about you?' he asked, turning to her again. 'Did you ever get over what I did to you?'

'Which bit?'

'You know which bit. If I could take that back, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I didn't know what I was doing, if that's any consolation. I was drunk, you looked so much like your mother; you still do. It was like you were her, the woman I met in school, and I couldn't stop myself.'

'Don't.' Hearing him talk about it made her heart race. Lisbon had avoided thinking about it for too many years, she’d pushed it to one side as though it meant very little. But facing him, facing her father and hearing his excuses made the whole thing feel suddenly more real. 'You don't need to explain.'

'Don't I?'

'I'll never forgive you for what you did,' she said, staring at the grass as she kicked it with her shoe. 'There's no reason to explain.'

'I need to, Reese; I need you to know that everything I did, it was wrong. But my leaving, I did that for you. I did that for my babies, so that you wouldn't have to live with me as a dad.'

Lisbon sighed and shook her head. 'You preferred your sixteen year old daughter bringing up your children?'

'No, no, never,’ he said. ‘I just, I thought maybe you'd get some help. That someone else would look after all of you.'

'They tried.’ She remembered the conversation clearly, as though it had happened the day before. The social worker assigned to their family stood in their living room trying to explain. ‘They couldn't find somewhere where we could all be together, so they agreed I could look after them. A social worker came to see us every week. They wanted to know who all of my friends were, who I was dating, how serious it was. They wanted to know everything about us. But it was the only way we could be together.'

'You did a good job, your brothers turned out well.'

'Well? You call that well? They turned out okay. They turned out as well as they could have done under the circumstances. But no, Aaron, they did not turn out well.'

'I'm sorry, wrong choice of words.'

'No, wrong sentiment. You have no idea how they turned out.'

'Actually I do.'

'What?'

'I know all about your work, Teresa, or should that be Saint Teresa? I might have left you but you never left me, not really. Every single day you were in my thoughts, and I always tried to find out how you were. I hired a private detective a couple times, just to see that you were doing okay. When you got that job at the CBI, I was so proud. If I could have told anyone about you, I'd have raved about my daughter, the senior cop. What is it, a detective?'

'Senior Agent.'

'Wow, just, wow. Your mom would have been so proud.'

'Yeah.'

'I know you hate me, and I don't blame you.'

'You're right,’ she said. ‘I do hate you. I hate you for everything you put me and the boys through, but mostly, I hate what you have put another family through by pretending to be dead all these years. Do those people even know who I am?'

'No.'

'I didn't think so.'

'I couldn't tell them.'

'Couldn't or wouldn't?'

'I, I don't know. When I got clean and met Debbie, everything changed. She knew I'd been married and that my wife died, but she didn't know that we'd had children. I couldn't tell her that I'd abandoned you all. It was hard enough having her know about my drinking.'

'You got clean?'

'Twenty years sober, fell off the wagon a couple of times in the first few years, but I got back up again,' he said, pulling a chain out from under his shirt where his sober chip hung around his neck. 'Best thing I ever did.'

'But you never came back.'

'I couldn't, Reese,’ he shook his head, his cheeks red. ‘I couldn't rip apart your lives when you'd finally found purpose.'

'You couldn't rip apart our lives? You'd already destroyed them!'

'You were in college, James was graduating high school and Tommy and Joey…how could I come back and turn your lives upside down? I don't blame them for hating me.'

'Joseph barely even remembers you; all he remembers is a violent bastard who hurt him. He doesn't have any good memories with you, or with Mom, so yes, he hates you and he'll go on hating you until he's dead. Tommy, too. He might have memories of you being the nice, doting father, but he has more memories of you beating him for not doing the dishes.'

Aaron sighed and looked up at Lisbon. 'I suppose you're gonna tell them I'm alive,'

'You don't want me to?' she asked.

'I don't know what I want.'

'Lucky that it's not your decision then, isn't it? I don't know what I'm going to do yet. If I tell Tommy, he'll be down here with a baseball bat and I don't think your new family would appreciate that.'

'No,’ Aaron chuckled. ‘I don't suppose they would.'

'So, you have grandchildren.'

'Yeah, I have a few more?'

'A lot more.'

'I'd love to meet them someday.'

'You'll have to talk to your sons about that.'

'You don't have any?'

'No I don't have any,' said Lisbon, holding up her hand. 'Few things kind of put me off the idea of marriage and kids.'

'I’m sorry about that.'

She reached a hand out to him. Aaron stared at it for a long time before he finally accepted it. Lisbon helped him to stand up, their hands staying together for another few minutes until she finally let go.

‘I’d like to see you again, if that’s okay?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Lisbon, looking him in the eye. ‘I’m glad we did this, but this is all it will ever be. I can’t have a relationship with you.’

‘Oh.’ Aaron glanced at the floor for a moment before meeting her eyes again. ‘I understand. I guess this is goodbye.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lisbon, nodding her head. She reached her hand out again and he shook it, as formally as a cop might shake a colleague. When they’d let go, Lisbon walked away, taking each step slowly, never looking back.

x

‘Is it time to go home?’ asked Jane, opening his arms when Lisbon re-entered the motel room.

She walked into them, wrapping herself up in his body. Like Greg, all those years ago, Lisbon found comfort and safety in his arms, she felt like the stability of their relationship was enough to keep her sane. The only difference was, when she told him how much she cared, she meant it. It had taken her decades to overcome what she’d been through, to reach a point where she felt able to move on with her life and though the last few days had put a dent in the hard work, they’d also helped her reach a place where she could forget the past.

‘I have to take a vacation,’ she said. ‘I pulled a gun on my dad.’

‘So I heard,’ said Jane. Lisbon raised an eyebrow but Jane just waved it away. ‘Spoke to Cho; he said they charged a man who worked at the diner for the murders. He hated witchcraft, thought it was his duty to do what he did. They’re going to hit him with everything they can.’

‘Good. So where do you want to go on vacation?’

‘How about Hawaii? I hear the beaches are lovely.’

Lisbon laughed and rested a hand on Jane’s cheek. She didn’t know how she’d have gotten through the last few days if it wasn’t for him.

‘I love you,’ he said, kissing Lisbon quickly on the lips. She held him at arm’s length for a moment, relishing in the feeling of being loved, of loving him back, and of the patience he’d shown. Then she allowed her lips to curl up at the edges, her lips poised ready to kiss him again.

‘I love you, too.’


End file.
